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Source: USA Today;The New York Times;The Washington Post
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Dueling Bitterness On Cable News

BYLINE: By JEREMY W. PETERS

SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Politics; NEWS ANALYSIS; Pg. 10

LENGTH: 1195 words

As the cable news channels count down the hours before the first polls close on Tuesday, an entire election cycle will have passed since President Obama last sat down with Fox News. The organization's standing request to interview the president is now almost two years old.

At NBC News, the journalists reporting on the Romney campaign will continue to absorb taunts from their sources about their sister cable channel, MSNBC. ''You mean, Al Sharpton's network,'' as they say Stuart Stevens, a senior Romney adviser, is especially fond of reminding them.

Spend just a little time watching either Fox News or MSNBC, and it is easy to see why such tensions run high. In fact, by some measures, the partisan bitterness on cable news has never been as stark -- and in some ways, as silly or small.

Martin Bashir, the host of MSNBC's 4 p.m. hour, recently tried to assess why Mitt Romney seemed irritable on the campaign trail and offered a provocative theory: that he might have mental problems.

''Mrs. Romney has expressed concerns about her husband's mental well-being,'' Mr. Bashir told one of his guests. ''But do you get the feeling that perhaps there's more to this than she's saying?''

Over on Fox News, similar psychological evaluations were under way on ''Fox & Friends.'' Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and a member of the channel's ''Medical A-Team,'' suggested that Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s ''bizarre laughter'' during the vice-presidential debate might have something to do with a larger mental health issue. ''You have to put dementia on the differential diagnosis,'' he noted matter-of-factly.

Neither outlet has built its reputation on moderation and restraint, but during this presidential election, research shows that both are pushing their stridency to new levels.

A Pew Research Center study found that of Fox News stories about Mr. Obama from the end of August through the end of October, just 6 percent were positive and 46 percent were negative.

Pew also found that Mr. Obama was covered far more than Mr. Romney. The president was a significant figure in 74 percent of Fox's campaign stories, compared with 49 percent for Romney. In 2008, Pew found that the channel reported on Mr. Obama and John McCain in roughly equal amounts.

The greater disparity was on MSNBC, which gave Mr. Romney positive coverage just 3 percent of the time, Pew found. It examined 259 segments about Mr. Romney and found that 71 percent were negative.

MSNBC, whose programs are hosted by a new crop of extravagant partisans like Mr. Bashir, Mr. Sharpton and Lawrence O'Donnell, has tested the limits of good taste this year. Mr. O'Donnell was forced to apologize in April after describing the Mormon Church as nothing more than a scheme cooked up by a man who ''got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that God told him to do it.''

The channel's hosts recycle talking points handed out by the Obama campaign, even using them as titles for program segments, like Mr. Bashir did recently with a segment he called ''Romnesia,'' referring to Mr. Obama's term to explain his opponent's shifting positions.

The hosts insult and mock, like Alex Wagner did in recently describing Mr. Romney's trip overseas as ''National Lampoon's European Vacation'' -- a line she borrowed from an Obama spokeswoman. Mr. Romney was not only hapless, Ms. Wagner said, he also looked ''disheveled'' and ''a little bit sweaty'' in a recent appearance.

Not that they save their scorn just for their programs. Some MSNBC hosts even use the channel's own ads promoting its slogan ''Lean Forward,'' to criticize the Republicans. Mr. O'Donnell accuses them of basing their campaigns on the false notion that Mr. Obama is inciting class warfare. ''You have to come up with a lie,'' he says, when your campaign is based on empty rhetoric.

In her ad, Rachel Maddow breathlessly decodes the logic behind the push to overhaul state voting laws. ''The idea is to shrink the electorate,'' she says, ''so a smaller number of people get to decide what happens to all of us.''

Such stridency has put NBC News journalists who cover Republicans in awkward and compromised positions, several people who work for the network said. To distance themselves from their sister channel, they have started taking steps to reassure Republican sources, like pointing out that they are reporting for NBC programs like ''Today'' and ''Nightly News'' -- not for MSNBC.

At Fox News, there is a palpable sense that the White House punishes the outlet for its coverage, not only by withholding the president, who has done interviews with every other major network, but also by denying them access to Michelle Obama.

This fall, Mrs. Obama has done a spate of television appearances, from CNN to ''Jimmy Kimmel Live'' on ABC. But when officials from Fox News recently asked for an interview with the first lady, they were told no. She has not appeared on the channel since 2010, when she sat down with Mike Huckabee.

Lately the White House and Fox News have been at odds over the channel's aggressive coverage of the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. Fox initially raised questions over the White House's explanation of the events that led to the attack -- questions that other news organizations have since started reporting on more fully.

But the commentary on the channel quickly and often turns to accusations that the White House played politics with American lives. ''Everything they told us was a lie,'' Sean Hannity said recently as he and John H. Sununu, a former governor of New Hampshire and a Romney campaign supporter, took turns raising questions about how the Obama administration misled the public. ''A hoax,'' Mr. Hannity called the administration's explanation. ''A cover-up.''

Mr. Hannity has also taken to selectively fact-checking Mr. Obama's claims, co-opting a journalistic tool that has proliferated in this election as news outlets sought to bring more accountability to their coverage.

Mr. Hannity's guest fact-checkers have included hardly objective sources, like Dick Morris, the former Clinton aide turned conservative commentator; Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney; and Michelle Malkin, the right-wing provocateur.

Telling the truth is not just a problem for the White House, Ms. Malkin asserted recently, before attacking Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee. ''We've talked about them before,'' Ms. Malkin said, ''the lying liars and the crap weasels, like Debbie Wasserman Schultz out there. And she really is in a classlessness all by herself.''

Peter Johnson, a commentator and the personal lawyer to Roger Ailes, the Fox News chairman, has suggested that the president is a liar and has even wondered whether the administration chose not to aid American forces in Libya for the sake of appearances. ''Was there a political calculation that was made to sacrifice Americans on the ground so we didn't kill innocents in front of the consulate?'' he asked.

Mr. Johnson then noted another political scandal that broke in an election year and failed to receive adequate scrutiny at the time: Watergate.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/us/politics/on-cable-news-networks-a-battle-of-bitterness.html

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: The Rev. Al Sharpton Jr. on MSNBC, which a recent Pew Research study found gave Mitt Romney very little positive coverage. (PHOTOGRAPH BY OZIER MUHAMMAD/THE NEW YORK TIMES)
A television at a Romney event was tuned to Fox News, whose stories on President Obama were found to be mostly negative. (PHOTOGRAPH BY EVAN McGLINN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES) (A11)

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News Analysis

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

The Spirit of America

BYLINE: By ROGER COHEN

SECTION: Section ; Column 0; Editorial Desk; OP-ED COLUMNIST; Pg.

LENGTH: 816 words

NEW YORK -- Four years ago, on the eve of the victory of Obama in the 2008 election, I attempted to define what America is.

It is renewal, I suggested, the place where impossible stories get written.

It is the overcoming of history, the leaving behind of war and barriers, in the name of a future freed from the vengeful clamp of memory.

It is reinvention, the absorption of one identity in something larger -- the notion that ''out of many, we are truly one.'' Americans are decent people. They're not interested in where you came from. They're interested in who you are.

At the close of this endless campaign -- on one of those crisp, clear New York days where the glimmer of possibility seems to lurk at the tapering edge of the city's ruler-straight canyons -- it is worth recalling that America, alone among nations, is an idea; and that idea dies when hope and possibility disappear.

As a naturalized American who recalls the 1,000 faces in the room where I swore the oath of allegiance and how they mapped the world and yet shared some essential notion of humanity, I confess to the convert's zeal. I had to take a dictation back then to become a citizen. It was supposed to prove my command of English. The second sentence was, ''I plan to work very hard every day.'' So here I am writing, loneliest of tasks.

It has been a hard, uneven road from 2008. The idealism vested in America's first black president was also vested in an introverted man whose talent for the deal-making that oils the wheels of politics proved limited. Barack Obama is the least ''political'' president since Jimmy Carter.

The United States is as divided today as it was four years ago -- over economic policy, of course, but more deeply over social policy: the whole regressive God-invoking push of the Republican right against a woman's right to abortion, gay rights, marriage equality and so on.

One nation sometimes feels like two.

But even with its debt and division and uneven recovery the United States has come a long way from the abyss of 2008. Obama is a man more likely than not to make smart decisions. He's also lucky. Sandy blew in a week before the election and by the time it blew out Mittmentum was dented, Bloomberg on board and New Jersey's Republican governor cooing.

There have been big achievements: the winding down of the wars, health reform, getting Osama bin Laden, and restoring the battered American idea.

Obama has fallen short of the pledge he made in 2009 when said we ''cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values.'' Drone killings have nothing to do with due process. But the country no longer inhabits the ''dark side'' of torture and rampant renditions.

By allowing gays to serve openly in the military and by signing legislation to back equal pay for equal work for women, Obama has strived to make the United States more inclusive.

America turns its back on its core ideas when it discriminates against women or on the basis of people's sexual orientation.

Romney has led a campaign that has said everything and the contrary, embracing war then peace, changing positions on Obamacare, refusing to reveal how he will offset tax cuts. He wants to deny women the right to abortion. His America, it seems, would be more unequal and divided.

Last week I wrote about the sharp divisions in the Jewish community of Cleveland, Ohio, where the Senate candidacy of a young right-wing Jewish ex-Marine named Josh Mandel has exacerbated the tensions of a close campaign where some Jews have tried hard to portray Obama as anti-Israel. Mandel, who has campaigned against the Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown, is related by marriage to the influential Ratner family.

After the column a paid ad in the form of an open letter to Mandel from several members of the Ratner family appeared in the Cleveland Jewish News. It read in part:

Dear Josh, Your cousins, Ellen Ratner and Cholene Espinoza, are among the many wonderful couples whose rights you do not recognize. They were married almost eight years ago in Massachusetts, at a time when it was the only state in the nation to allow same-sex marriage. Their wedding, like yours, was a beautiful and happy occasion for all of us in our family. It hurts us that you would embrace discrimination against them.

We are equally distressed by your belief that gay men and women should not be allowed to serve openly in the military. Like you, Cholene spent many years in the armed forces. A graduate of the Air Force Academy and an accomplished pilot, she became the second woman in history to fly the U-2 reconnaissance plane. And yet, you have argued that she, like many gay and lesbian soldiers, should be forced to live a life of secrecy and lies.

The letter embodies the spirit that overcame slavery and Jim Crow and has made America an ever-reinvented land always pushing to the next frontier. It is cause for hope.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/opinion/the-spirit-of-america.html

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: Op-Ed

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

The Real Loser: Truth

BYLINE: By KEVIN M. KRUSE.

Kevin M. Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton, is the co-editor, most recently, of ''Fog of War: The Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement.''

SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR; Pg. 29

LENGTH: 1053 words

Princeton, N.J.

THE director Steven Spielberg, whose ''Lincoln'' biopic opens Friday, recently said he hoped the film would have a ''soothing or even healing effect'' on a nation exhausted after yet another bitter and polarizing election.

But there's one line attributed to Lincoln that Daniel Day-Lewis, who plays the president, doesn't utter in the film: ''You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.''

The omission makes sense. Not only is the line probably apocryphal, but also, this Election Day just might demonstrate that you really can fool all of the people -- or at least enough of them -- in the time it takes to win the White House.

Venomous personal attacks and accusations of adultery, miscegenation and even bestiality are as old as the Republic. Aaron Burr was the sitting vice president when he killed Alexander Hamilton.

But while the line between fact and fiction in politics has always been fuzzy, a confluence of factors has strained our civic discourse, if it can still be called that, to the breaking point.

The economic boom and middle-class expansion of the postwar era encouraged relative deference for officials, journalists and scholars. It's true that reporters and politicians had far cozier relationships, but the slower news cycle allowed more time for verification and analysis.

Candidates accordingly believed that being caught in an outright lie could damage their careers. (As Daniel Patrick Moynihan reportedly said, ''Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.'') They tended only to bend the truth, not break it.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman denounced Republican financiers as ''bloodsuckers'' and ''gluttons of privilege,'' but grounded his inflammatory language in the facts of Congress's legislative record. He denied his ''give 'em hell'' reputation, saying later only that ''I used to tell the truth on the Republicans, and they called it that.''

Two years later, Richard M. Nixon, running for the Senate from California, said his opponent, Representative Helen Gahagan Douglas, was ''pink right down to her underwear,'' a red-baiting remark, but one that referred to statements she'd made calling for global disarmament and civil rights for women and blacks.

The brass-knuckle 1964 campaign is remembered for Lyndon B. Johnson's alarmist ''daisy ad,'' which suggested that Barry M. Goldwater's election might lead to nuclear war. But it rested on statements Goldwater had made indicating a loose attitude toward nuclear weapons. (''Lob one into the men's room in the Kremlin,'' he once joked.)

The attack ads devised by the strategist Lee Atwater for Vice President George Bush in the 1988 campaign, one of the dirtiest ever, were grounded in at least a kernel of truth. Mr. Bush's opponent, Michael S. Dukakis, might not have deserved blame for the furlough program that let Willie Horton commit additional crimes, but at least the program and prisoner were real. Atwater exploited these events, but did not invent them.

At least four factors since the 1970s have lowered the cost for politicians who lie and, more important, repeat their fabrications through their attack ads. First is the overall decline in respect for institutions and professionals of all kinds, from scientists and lawyers to journalists and civil servants.

Second are changes in media regulation and ownership. In 1985, the conservative organization Fairness in Media, backed by Senator Jesse Helms, tried to arrange a takeover of CBS and ''become Dan Rather's boss.'' It failed, but two years later conservatives set the stage for an even bigger triumph. For decades, radio and television broadcasters had been required to present multiple viewpoints on contentious public debates on the grounds that they were stewards of the public airwaves. But in 1987, members appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the Federal Communications Commission abolished this ''fairness doctrine.'' The change facilitated the creation of conservative talk radio and cable outlets to combat perceived liberal bias. Liberals followed suit with programming (albeit less effective) of their own.

As this cacophony crescendoed, a third trend developed as political operatives realized they had more room to stretch the truth. In 2004, an aide to President George W. Bush dismissed a journalist for being part of a ''reality-based community'' of people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' But even Mr. Bush believed there were limits to truth-bending. The ads that attacked the military service of Senator John Kerry came from the ostensibly independent ''Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.'' After the ads aired, Mr. Bush belatedly called them ''bad for the system.''

A fourth factor: most news organizations (with notable exceptions) abandoned their roles as political referees. Many resorted to an atrophied style that resembled stenography more than journalism, presenting all claims as equally valid. Fact checking, once a foundation for all reporting, was now deemed the province of a specialized few.

But as this campaign has made clear, not even the dedicated fact-checkers have made much difference.

PolitiFact has chronicled 19 ''pants on fire'' lies by Mr. Romney and 7 by Mr. Obama since 2007, but Mr. Romney's whoppers have been qualitatively far worse: the ''apology tour,'' the ''government takeover of health care,'' the ''$4,000 tax hike on middle class families,'' the gutting of welfare-to-work rules, the shipment by Chrysler of jobs from Ohio to China. Said one of his pollsters, Neil Newhouse, ''We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.''

To be sure, the Obama campaign has certainly had its own share of dissembling and distortion, including about Mr. Romney's positions on abortion and foreign aid. But nothing in it -- or in past campaigns, for that matter -- has equaled the efforts of the Romney campaign in this realm. Its fundamental disdain for facts is something wholly new.

The voters, of course, may well recoil against these cynical manipulations at the polls. But win or lose, the Romney campaign has placed a big and historic bet on the proposition that facts can be ignored, more or less, with impunity.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/06/opinion/the-real-loser-truth.html

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY MATT DORFMAN
ORIGINAL DRAWING BY MARCUS WICKLIFFE BALDWIN, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

DOCUMENT-TYPE: Op-Ed

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

A Frantic Election-Eve Day on the Campaign Trail

BYLINE: By THE NEW YORK TIMES

SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Politics; THE CAUCUS; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 6711 words

New York Times political reporters are traveling with the presidential candidates and their running mates on the last day of campaigning before Election Day. What follows is a running diary of the day.

12:09 A.M. | A Raucous Homecoming for Ryan

MILWAUKEE - Lest he forget where he is after visiting four airplane hangars in four states across three time zones, Representative Paul D. Ryan could glance behind him at the enormous banner, "Victory in Wisconsin.''

But then, he could hardly forget he had finally arrived home. To the strains of "It's a Long Way to the Top if You Want to Rock and Roll,'' he received five minutes of raucous applause from the crowd of 2,500, his biggest response in days. He gave a bear hug to Gov. Scott Walker, who had introduced him. "Boy, it feels so good to be home,'' he exclaimed.

Standing in the middle of the crowd, his voice a mix of rasp and emotion, Mr. Ryan said, "We have traveled across this country as a family, talking with people throughout America who care so deeply about the country.''

He cited a list of conservative Republican leaders from Wisconsin, including the governor, Senator Ron Johnson and Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee. "Here we are, this state, our beautiful 10 electoral votes,'' he said. "They can't take us for granted anymore.''

Yet, in presidential elections, as his audience well knew, he said, "We haven't gone Republican since 1984.'' Exhorting a crowd that needed no uplift, he started a chant of "One more day!''

"Let's prove 'em wrong!'' he said.

"I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of my family,'' he said. "Thank you for waiting in line, thank you for taking the time, thank you for getting people to the polls ''

His words were drowned out by cheers, supporters waving flags and "Wisconsin Believes" signs with fervor.

Mr. Ryan had one more flight, a hop to his hometown of Janesville. But he wasn't quite finished campaigning. Late in the day his campaign announced that after voting Tuesday morning, he would head to Ohio and Virginia.

He will arrive in Cleveland at 11:55, shortly after Mitt Romney, for a joint appearance. He'll get to Richmond at 2:55. Then, of course, it is on to Boston.

- Trip Gabriel

12:02 A.M. | Emotions Run High in Last Moments on the Trail

DES MOINES - 10:30 p.m., Central time - And during the last rally, here where it all started, President Obama shed a tear.

Mr. Obama was talking before a crowd of 20,000 here, shivering in the cold. He told the story about the lady who first started the whole "fired up, ready to go" chant, in Greenwood, S.C., back in 2008.

And then, he talked about Iowa, about knocking on doors during the 2008 Democratic primaries, and sitting in living rooms here in this state, when his campaign seemed at once so improbable yet so full of hope.

And then, the tears came. The president is not one for showing emotion. He quickly wiped them away, and kept talking.

- Helene Cooper

11:22 P.M. | Back Where It All Began

DES MOINES - 10:02 p.m., Central time - The first lady, Michelle Obama, is introducing President Obama in front of the State Capitol here, where it all started back in 2008.

There are 20,000 people here, who have been standing in the cold waiting on the president for hours.

"This is a pretty emotional time for us because as you know this is the final event of my husband's campaign," Mrs. Obama says. "So we had to come here."

She vows that "tomorrow we won't stop until every last voice and every last vote is counted."

She sounds exhausted. But her voice gets stronger when she introduces "the love of my life" and her husband jogs onto the stage, giving her a 10-second-long hug.

And then its President Barack Obama's last campaign rally.

"I've come back to Iowa one more time," he says, "to ask for your vote."

- Helene Cooper

10:30 P.M. | On the Last Stop of the Night, a Familiar Face

DES MOINES - 8:59 p.m., Central time - Air Force One is wheels down in Des Moines, and President Obama alights shortly after.

This is his last stop before heading home to Chicago.

He bounds down the stairs, now clad in a sports jacket to ward off the chill. His motorcade holds on the tarmac for a few minutes, awaiting arrival of the plane with the first lady, Michelle Obama.

At 9:16 p.m., the motorcade moves a few hundred feet to the Flotus plane. Mr. Obama gets out of his car and stands at the bottom of the steps to greet, and hug, his wife.

"How you doing?" he asks her.

Two minutes later, the motorcade is rolling.

- Helene Cooper

8:59 P.M. | Biden Seizes on '47 Percent' Remarks in Final Rally

RICHMOND, Va. - Closing out his campaigning at a frigid evening rally along the banks of the James River here, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. told a crowd of supporters that Mitt Romney had "personally offended" him when he spoke about 47 percent of Americans, saying that the Republican presidential nominee was talking about Mr. Biden's parents and people like them.

The long campaign showed little sign of taking its toll on the 69-year-old vice president, who, wearing a brown leather jacket and alternately energetically waving his finger and fist, urged the crowd to defeat the nominees of what he characterized as an increasingly radical and reactionary Republican Party.

"This is not your father's Republican Party," Mr. Biden said. "This is not John Warner's Republican Party, and this is not Mitt Romney's father's Republican Party," he added, referring to Virginia's popular former G.O.P. senator and to George Romney, who was governor of Michigan in the 1960s.

Much of Mr. Biden's talk here, which followed a performance by John Mellencamp, an Obama-Biden supporter, tracked his familiar stump-speech lines of recent weeks. But he seemed to bear down in an unusually personal way on criticism of Mr. Romney's secretly recorded comments at a fund-raiser earlier this year. In those comments, Mr. Romney had said that there are 47 percent of Americans who "are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them."

"It personally offended me," Mr. Biden said. "Who he was talking about were my mom and dad. Who he was talking about is those seniors who worked their whole life and got social security and now aren't paying taxes on it, nor should they pay any taxes on it. The majority of those people are people who are employed, who pay with their withholding taxes, pay their property tax. They probably pay an effective tax rate more than he pays on $20 million."

Mr. Biden added, "We are determined - Barack and I - to level the playing field for the middle class. Give them a fighting chance."

The rally was Mr. Biden's last official campaign stop, though he will vote Tuesday in his home state of Delaware.

- Richard A. Oppel Jr.

8:45 p.m. | A Big Crowd Gathers for Romney's Campaign Solo

FAIRFAX, Va. - Like President Obama (and Gov. Chris Christie), Mitt Romney had his own, admittedly casual brush with a musical legend on Monday: he name-dropped the mother of all rock groups, The Beatles.

As he surveyed the enormous crowd of at an athletic complex here, Mr. Romney appeared incredulous that they had turned out for him - and him alone. (His biggest crowd are often lured by a two-fer: Mr. Romney and a musical guest, like "Kid Rock.")

"I am overwhelmed," Mr. Romney said. "I am looking around to see if we have the Beatles here or something to have brought you but it looks like you came just for the campaign and I appreciate it."

- Michael Barbaro

7:58 P.M. | Stopping at a Campaign Office

COLUMBUS, Ohio - President Obama mades an unscheduled stop at a campaign office. Staffers and volunteers were working the phones, "Ohio for Obama" signs on the walls.

Mr. Obama walked in to cheers. "Let me say hi to everybody," he said jovially. "You guys are working hard."The president hugged and kissed some people, then paused and said: "This is the foundation of this campaign. All the ups and downs, the TV stuff doesn't matter because you guys are what make this campaign."

He then turned and hugged a woman who exclaimed: "Oh my god!"

Mr. Obama admonished a campaign worker who asked for a picture. "We're gonna do pictures with everybody...you're a field organizer, you gotta be looking out for your volunteers."Then the president sat down and began making phone calls to volunteers."This is Barack Obama, looks like I missed you, everybody's been telling me what a great job you're doing."After that phone call, he said, "I like this. This is intense right here."

He then made another call."Hi Jim. This is Barack Obama. It really is. Well listen. I heard all the doors you've been knocking on, I wanted to say thank you."

Jim must have been talking a lot because Mr. Obama listened for a long time.

A woman sitting next to the president said into her phone, "I'm sitting next to Barack Obama right now, he says hi to you!"She handed the phone to Mr. Obama, who said,"hey Gloria, keep it up!"

The woman returns to the call with Gloria: "That's right baby! He kissed me on the cheek!"

- Helene Cooper

7:50 P.M. | Campaign Aides Mum on Ryan's Election Day Plans

DES MOINES, Iowa - Back in the warm months, just after Mitt Romney tapped Representative Paul D. Ryan to be his No. 2, joint appearances by the running mates drew hugely enthusiastic crowds, which were larger than those Mr. Romney alone attracted, and the senior partner visibly drew energy from his younger ticket mate.

This is now, when Mr. Romney is the one with star power for Republicans, and Mr. Ryan has been much less noticed on the national stage.

With Mr. Romney announcing he is adding two last-minute events on Election Day, visits to field offices to inspire volunteers and attract publicity, will Mr. Ryan be going along?

Aides to Mr. Ryan are not saying, at least for now. One press aide said, "You won't hear it from me.'' The travelling campaign spokesman, Michael Steel, said, "No new information yet.''

Mr. Ryan is taking a short flight home to Janesville, Wis. late tonight after his finally rally in Milwaukee rally, then plans to vote tomorrow morning. The only other event on his dance card so far is a flight to Boston for the joint election night appearance.

Stay tuned.

- Trip Gabriel

7:15 p.m. | Romney Makes an Entrance

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Mr. Romney's aides wanted a big entrance for his rally here on Monday night. Their time-tested strategy of driving the candidate into an airport hangar on his campaign bus didn't feel right.

The obvious solution: have Mr. Romney ride in on his campaign plane.

At 7:15 p.m., as the crowd inside a hangar here waited for the candidate to walk in the front door, a giant side gate opened, music blared and the plane began to steer its way in.

Bob White, Mr. Romney's longtime friend, took out his cell phone to record the moment. "This place is going to go crazy," Mr. White predicted. It did.

But there was a small problem. The plane's first try in brought the right wing too close to the door, so the plane backed up and attempted a second try. It worked.

As Mr. and Mrs.Romney walked off, another aide, Beth Myers, soon followed, trailing behind. She radiated a can-you-believe-we-just-did-that mirth. "That," she yelled to her campaign colleagues. "Was s-o-o-o cool."

- Michael Barbaro

7:13 P.M. | Mellencamp Warms Up the Crowd in Virginia

RICHMOND, Va. - John Mellencamp took the stage 20 minutes ago to warm up the crowd at Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s final campaign stop here at the historic Tredegar Iron Works downtown.

He began singing "Jack and Diane" by himself, playing the guitar. Then he sang "Small Town," accompanied by a guitarist and accordion player.

In between the two songs, Mr. Mellencamp told the crowd, "In one man's success, there is real hope for us all. And that's why we're all here tonight."

Then he played "The West End," introducing it as a song about "what greed can do to a country when the middle class has no place to go."

"But the middle class is going to rise up again, and the rich are going to pay their fair share," Mr. Mellencamp told the crowd, adding: "Let there be no haves and have-nots - just a level playing-field that makes everything possible, and that we can still believe in the American dream."

The song's lyrics include:

For my whole life I've lived down in the West End But it sure has changed here Since I was a kid It's worse now Look what progress did Someone lined their pockets I don't know who that is

- Richard A. Oppel Jr.

5:14 P.M. | Jay-Z, Springsteen and the President in Ohio

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Jay-Z is firing up the crowd of 15,500 here in the Nationwide Arena in a fully amped-up show.

"Ohio, will you make some noise for your president, Barack Obama!"

President Obama is on stage. "Fired up!" he begins, trying to recreate the magic of 2008. "Ready to go!"

The crowds are smaller now, but here in this swing state to end all swing states, on this last day of campaigning, there is a rainbow mix of black, white and brown. And they are all screaming.

For Bruce Springsteen, who opened the show? Yes. For Jay-Z? Definitely. For the president? Sure, him too.

The president is touting his accomplishments. Twenty minutes into his speech, when Mr. Obama mentions the name "Mitt Romney," the crowd predictably boos.

Wait for it. Here comes the line: "Don't boo. Vote!" Mr. Obama says.

Back to his accomplishments. "The war in Iraq is over," Mr. Obama says. "Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat. Osama bin Laden is dead."

Mr. Obama's voice is starting to crack now, and his church-preacher cadence is coming out.

The president is doing a slew of radio interviews Monday, his aides said, and will even appear on ESPN during "Monday Night Football" time.

"Ohio, after four years, you know me by now," Mr. Obama says. There is allowance during his talk for some of the disappointment of the last four years.

"You may be frustrated with the pace of change but that's O.K., so am I," Mr. Obama said, his voice definitely cracking now. "But you know I mean what I say and I say what I mean."

He's tie-less, with a black blazer, leaning into the podium. The blue signs that say "Forward!" dot the arena.

Mr. Obama seems to be weaving in and out of enthusiasm and emotion. One minute he is droning on with the usual stump speech - "change is turning the page on a decade of war so we can do some nation-building at home" - and the next minute he seems to remember that this is it, the last day, his last chance.

And his voice rises again. "Ohio, my bet's on you. My hope is with you. My faith is with you."

Now he's yelling. His finger goes up and down against the podium, punctuating his points. "We've come too far to turn back now we will win Ohio let's go vote!"

The voice is almost gone. But he's still got another rally to do, in Des Moines, in a few hours.

- Helene Cooper

4:35 p.m. | In Colorado, a Ryan Pep Talk

JOHNSTOWN, Colo. - Representative Paul D. Ryan's marathon fly-around included rallies in four airplane hangars in three time zones, but he also managed a visit to a truck stop here, north of Denver.

Not just any roadside attraction, it's a place called Johnson's Corner, with its own Web site with an entry for "Our Story." It has been open 24-7, 365 days a year since 1952. It serves its celebrated cinnamon rolls.

"They're like the size of your head, I'm told," Mr. Ryan said to his two young sons as he entered the restaurant in search of voters and baked goods. He ordered two dozen of the rolls, each in a plastic clamshell and swimming in a bath of icing. He held one up to his son Sam's head to show its size.

A reporter asked how Mr. Ryan felt about the election. News flash: "I feel very good about it," he said.

He climbed onto an outdoor stage flanked by red and blue Kenworth tractor-trailer cabs, chrome gleaming.

Midway through Mr. Ryan's stump speech - after he asked supporters to "vote out of love of country"' and before he recited the five-point Romney-Ryan plan - a big rig on Interstate 25 tooted its horn as it passed the rally. "I'll tell you, truckers are great," Mr. Ryan said.

He implored Coloradans to "leave it all on the field" on Election Day, to urge friends and families to go to the polls. "Let's wake up on Wednesday morning knowing we did all we could," he said.

When reporters returned to the press bus, they found a surprise on each seat: a cinnamon roll the size of, well, a salad plate.

- Trip Gabriel

3:15 p.m. | The President Connects the Boss With a Famous Fan

COLUMBUS, Ohio - On what is supposed to be a day focused on swing states, New Jersey continues to pop up. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, confirmed that President Obama had put Bruce Springsteen on the phone with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey while the president and the Boss were flying to Columbus from Madison, Wis., on Air Force One.

Mr. Christie, a Republican, is well known as one of the biggest Bruce fans ever, but had not gotten love from Mr. Springsteen, a die-hard Democrat, in the past. Though Mr. Christie has attended more than 100 of his concerts, Mr. Springsteen has not invited him backstage.

But in these post-hurricane days of bipartisan bonhomie between Mr. Obama and Mr. Christie, who better than the president to serve as yenta between the Boss and his fan?

Mr. Christie promptly relayed the fact of the phone call to reporters. When asked, Mr. Carney confirmed: "When Potus told the governor he had someone who wanted to speak with him, Springsteen, who was using the handset across the table from the president, said, 'Governor, this is Bruce.' "

- Helene Cooper

4:17 p.m. | Ann Romney Goes to (Suburban) Washington

FAIRFAX, Va. - Mr. Romney and his wife, Ann, own three homes. But just before 4 p.m. on Monday, Mrs. Romney made it known that she wouldn't mind taking up residence in a fourth.

At a rally in a suburb of Washington - home of the coveted 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue address - Mrs. Romney took the stage and posed a question to a crowd of more than 10,000.

"Are we going to be neighbors soon?" she playfully asked.

(Based on the cheering response, the answer was an unequivocal yes.)

- Ashley Parker

3:18 p.m. | Campaign Coverage of the Boss

COLUMBUS, Ohio - We interrupt this Obama campaign report with a brief side trip to the Jersey Shore.

Air Force One is wheels down here after a one-hour flight.

Instead of scrambling to watch the president alight, the reporters traveling on the plane scramble to catch a glimpse of ... Bruce Springsteen.

Penetrating questions follow.

"Was this your first time on Air Force One?"

The Boss starts grinning. He nods. "It was pretty cool," he says.

Another hard-hitting question:

"What did you talk about on the plane with President Obama?"

Mr. Springsteen, famously a New Jersey native, says they talked about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the Jersey Shore. "I'm feeling pretty hopeful," he says about the chances that his beloved seashore will recover.

A few minutes later, after his arrival at the campaign's Columbus event, another sharp query for Mr. Springsteen comes rocketing from the traveling press.

"Sir, have you spoken with Governor Christie since the storm?" Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican, is a huge Springsteen fan, but he doesn't get much love from his state's greatest export.

Times may be changing, though. "Yes," Mr. Springsteen replies. "We have."

O.K., back to the president. Seriously.

- Helene Cooper

2:44 P.M. | Romney to Hit Ohio and Pennsylvania on Election Day

DULLES, Va. - Mitt Romney, who had no plans to campaign on Election Day, has decided to travel to the swing states of Pennsylvania and Ohio on Tuesday.

Aides said Mr. Romney would visit campaign offices in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Until now, his staff had said a rally in New Hampshire on Monday night would be his last event of the campaign.

Read more on the Media Decoder blog.

- Bill Carter

12:51 P.M. | Ryan Makes a Plea to Nevada

RENO, Nev. - Under sunny skies and in the shadow of peaks already covered with snow, Representative Paul D. Ryan made Stop No. 1 on a day that will take him next to Colorado, Iowa, Ohio and, finally, a late-night rally in Milwaukee in his home state.

"We're doing a barn-burner today, we're crisscrossing the country, Mitt and I,'' Mr. Ryan told supporters in a darkened airplane hangar.

"It's kind of déjà vu, you look kind of familiar,'' Mr. Ryan said in a jocular vein. "You've seen a few of us around, haven't you? And you know why? Nevada can make the difference.''

That is possible, but Nevada looks like a tough battleground state for the Republican ticket. By some estimates, two-thirds of Nevadans have already voted. Democrats cast 44 percent of the ballots and Republicans 37 percent. It translates to a 50,000-vote margin for Democrats. A local official introducing Mr. Ryan called on Republicans to "burn down that firewall" on Tuesday. For the Republican ticket to prevail, Nevada analysts say, it would need a flood of independents breaking for Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan.

As Mr. Ryan arrived late Sunday night, his motorcade passed the Democratic headquarters of the Washoe County Democrats. The lights were still on at 11:45 p.m.

- Trip Gabriel

12:45 p.m. | A Day of Flybys for Romney

SANFORD, Fla. - Less than 24 hours before the polls open, Mitt Romney has entered the drive-through portion of his campaign.

He spent the last year traveling to voters, crisscrossing the country and dropping into small towns and rural communities.

But on the final day, they came to him.

Three of Mr. Romney's five rallies are veritable flybys, held in airport hangars so Mr. Romney can land, jog down the steps of his private plane to the blaring thrum of Kid Rock's "Born Free," and then begin taxiing to the next city nearly as soon as he has shaken the last hand and kissed the last baby.

When Mr. Romney's plane touched down here after an 18-hour day (four events in four states) just before 1 a.m. Monday, his aides had already begun setting up for the day's rally. A "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose" sign greeted the plane, and an empty hangar waited lighted and ready for the voters who would file in just hours later.

So, what do voters think, heading to an auxiliary airport hangar to glimpse the man who they hope will be the next president?

"It's a convenient venue for him to come into and land," Greg Baker, 65, of Sorrento, Fla., said with a shrug. "And rallies are rallies."

- Ashley Parker

12:28 P.M. | An Obama Supporter on Political Geography in Virginia

STERLING, Va. - An Obama-Biden supporter here, Bruce Burton, a union representative who lives in Fairfax County, explained in an interview the rough voting demographics of the state: "Virginia is really
two states: You have Northern Virginia, and then everything below the Rappahannock. And this part tends to be a lot more Democratic," he said, referring to the portion north of the river, which he said includes a lot more people from other parts of the country, more members of minority groups, and more federal government employees.

Mr. Burton blames the Republicans for trying to stymie Mr. Obama¹s efforts to revive the economy, and he credits the president's stimulus package for lowering the unemployment rate by a full percentage point. Citing a recent cartoon, Mr. Burton said, "For the Republicans to criticize the president for the economy is like John Wilkes Booth criticizing Abraham Lincoln for missing the second act of the play." He added: "Or Lucy pulling the football out and then blaming Charlie Brown because he missed." Senator Jim Webb of Virgnia is now warming up the crowd for former governor Tim Kaine, the Democrat who is running to replace him.

- Richard A. Oppel Jr.

12:16 P.M. | Springsteen Rallies the Crowd in Madison

MADISON, Wis. - Bruce Springsteen is introducing President Obama. "This is a song called 'Land of Hope and Dreams,'" he said, as he begins the familiar opening chords of his millennium anthem.

The crowd of 18,000 is bundled up in front of the state Capitol, and the American flag is waving in the background. Mr. Springsteen is acoustic. Atop a crane, David Plouffe, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs stand, hands in pockets, watching the Boss as he stumps for their boss.

The song ends, and the president jogs onto the stage, engulfing Mr. Springsteen in a huge bear hug.

Reporters, who had been atop giant cranes themselves to get a better view of Mr. Springsteen, hastily scramble down to take notes as Mr. Obama begins his stump speech.

It's hard to hear, and Mr. Obama, who has been drinking hot tea to help his throat during the final campaign slog, already sounds hoarse. "Our fight goes on," he says. He describes his vision of an America where "everybody is doing their fair share, everybody is playing by the same rules, that's why you elected me in 2008 and that's why I'm running for a second term!"

The crowd is chanting: "Four more years! Four more years!"

- Helene Cooper

12:04 P.M. | A Rock Concert Atmosphere at Biden Rallies

STERLING, Va. - At Vice President Jospher R. Biden Jr.'s rallies, the aides like to play loud, loud music before and after, so booming that it is hard to interview the people there. Right now it's one of the campaign's favorites: "Roll With the Changes" by REO Speedwagon. "Oh, you got to learn to, got to learn to, got to learn to roll. ..."

- Richard A. Oppel Jr.

11:55 a.m. | Casual Monday in Madison

MADISON, Wis. - There's a Casual Friday feel in the lobby of the Sheraton Madison. Robert Gibbs and David Plouffe are in jeans, Mr. Gibbs in grungy-looking sneakers. Valerie Jarrett is not. David Axelrod and Reggie Love didn't get the jeans memo either. Nor Ben Rhodes nor Jay Carney. Jen Psaki is all in black.

It's a beautiful bright and chilly day. As the motorcade began rolling to the event, we were told, a crowd of 18,000 awaited.

The president arrived as Bruce Springsteen was playing an acoustic version of "Promise Land."

- Helene Cooper

11:51 A.M. | A Delivery Four Decades in the Making

SANFORD, Fla. - An air of unfinished family business has always hovered around the Romney campaign, from the George Romney posters in his Boston headquarters to the way both Mr. Romney and his wife, Ann, reverentially speak of Mr. Romney's father, the late three-term governor of Michigan.

And on Monday, just after 10 a.m. here, the generations of Romney men made their presence felt yet again.

Mr. Romney emerged onstage at his first rally of the day wearing a purple striped tie, courtesy of his older brother Scott. Scott has had the tie for years, and last night, when Mr. Romney saw it, he told his older brother he was in need of new neck ware.

"Can I add that to my rotation he asked?" (Yes, came the reply).

After the rally, a supporter approached Mr. Romney as he shook hands, and handed him a Ziploc bag containing six blue Romney pins from 1968, when Mr. Romney's father ran for president.

He had been holding onto the pins, waiting for just the right moment to give them to Mr. Romney. And less than 24-hours before Election Day - and more than four decades after George Romney's bid - he finally found his chance.

- Ashley Parker

11:23 a.m. | The Bidens on the Ground in Virginia

STERLING, Va. - Hundreds of people are already waiting at the Heritage Farm Museum at Claude Moore Park here for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s first scheduled campaign event of the day, a rally with his wife, Dr. Jill Biden.

The Bidens flew to Washington last night after a three-stop swing in Ohio - perhaps the most critical battleground state this election, with 18 electoral votes - where Mr. Biden declared: "We need Ohio, we need you. We win Ohio, we win this election."

But the Obama-Biden campaign also needs Virginia and its 13 electoral votes. And so the 69-year-old vice president is spending the final day of the campaign in Virginia, ending with an evening rally in Richmond where John Mellencamp will perform. The state's Democratic Senators - Jim Webb and Mark Warner - and the former Democratic governor, Tim Kaine, are expected to attend both events, according to the Obama-Biden campaign.

- Richard A. Oppel Jr.

9:10 a.m. | Voices of Voters for Romney

SANFORD, Fla. - On the final day of campaigning, voters are at their most energized, their voices crying out during Mr. Romney's speeches with expressions of support and fury.

But what exactly are they shouting?

Here is a sampling:

"Help us take back our country!"

"We want Mitt."

"Fire Obama!"

"Unacceptable!"

"He's a loser!" (Obama)

"Keystone, pipeline!"

"We love you, Ann!" (Mr. Romney's wife)

"One more day! One more day!"

"45! 45! 45!" (Mr. Romney would be the 45th president)

"Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!"

- Michael Barbaro

10:15 a.m. | The Traveling Press and the Traveling Press Secretary

SANFORD, Fla. - It is a fitting coda to the frequently distant and contentious relationship between the reporters that travel with Mr. Romney and his campaign's traveling press secretary, Rick Gorka.

On Monday morning, the reporters yelled in unison for Mr. Gorka to walk to the back of the plane to answer questions, something he has done less and less over time.

He did so, warily, and sparingly.

REPORTER: What is the mood inside the campaign?

GORKA: "We are an economic campaign. Streamlining government. We feel great."

REPORTER: Is Mr. Romney planning a surprise rally in Ohio on Election Day, as we have heard?

GORKA: "We'll advise his official schedule. And if there is anything beyond that, we will update you."

REPORTER: You said tonight's rally is his "final" rally? Is that accurate anymore?

GORKA: "We will have an official schedule we will announce."

And so it went, most questions bouncing back half-answered.

Until, suddenly, the questions and answers become rather warm and playful. Both sides seemed to realize the limitations of their long relationship, and to embrace it.
A reporter asked Mr. Gorka to provide running, behind the scenes details about Mr. Romney's day on Tuesday, including his "last meal."

"He is going to live beyond Tuesday," Mr. Gorka deadpanned, drawing laughter.

A reporter pointed out that if Mr. Romney did have a last-minute rally on Tuesday, despite a widely reported schedule that said he would not, members of the news media would "have egg all over our faces."

To which Mr. Gorka replied dryly: "We don't want that."

Asked about his own mood on the final full day of campaigning, Mr. Gorka was reflective.

"I am sitting here. I am enjoying it. I know I have Patron underneath this plane to help me get through this day if I need to."

At that, Charlie Pearce, a campaign staffer, stalked Mr. Gorka from behind, walked down the plane's center aisle and placed a Philadelphia Eagle's helmet over Mr. Gorka's head.

The press laughed. Mr. Gorka laughed.

"Luckily there is nothing in here to be concussed," he said, pointing to the helmet.

"Now," he added, "I am ready for my close up."

- Michael Barbaro

9:30 a.m. | The Boss on The Plane

MADISON, Wis. - Call it Air Force Born to Run.

Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki electrifies the press corps traveling with President Obama when she informs them that Bruce Springsteen will join President Obama on the presidential 747 on Monday for the last day of campaigning. The Boss, who will be performing at not one but three rallies Monday for Mr. Obama, will fly with the
president from Madison to Columbus.

Stay tuned.

- Helene Cooper

8:45 a.m. | Crossed Signals on Economic Messaging

SANFORD, Fla. - Even on the final day of a presidential campaign, signals can become crossed. At a rally here, the Republican governor of Florida, Rick Scott, introduced Mr. Romney, whose message of economic turmoil under President Obama is central to his quest for the White House.

Mr. Scott did not seem to be playing ball.

"Guess what?" he asked the crowd in an airport hangar. "The biggest drop in unemployment in the country is in our great state of Florida."

Mr. Romney did not repeat that line when he took the stage.

- Michael Barbaro

8:36 a.m. | Obama Begins Three-State Swing in Wisconsin

MADISON, Wis. - President Obama began his last day of campaigning here in a state that almost every Democratic model for an Obama victory assumes will be in his column. But with Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin on the Republican ticket, the president is taking no chances.

After this weekend's marathon crisscrossing of every swing state, Mr. Obama's schedule on Monday looked almost tame by comparison. Even so, he was to hit three states before heading to sweet home Chicago for the night.

After the rally planned for Monday morning in this college town, Mr. Obama will return one last time to the swing state of all swing states for a rally in Columbus, Ohio. The president has been holding on to a small lead in the polls in Ohio, and his campaign aides believe that if he wins the state, he will win the election. Unless, that is, Mr. Romney manages to sweep all the other swing states, or turn a blue state - Mr. Romney planted a flag in Pennsylvania on Sunday - red.

After Ohio, Michelle Obama will join her husband for one last rally where the two like to insist that it all started - Des Moines. Mr. Obama's victory in the Iowa caucuses in 2008 catapulted his candidacy from also-ran to front-runner in the Democratic primaries, and the Obamas talk often about how much they loved tramping around in the snow in Iowa and hanging out with butter cows and whatnot at the Iowa State Fair.

In recent days, the president has been joined onstage by Democratic bigwigs. Former President Bill Clinton was with him on Sunday in New Hampshire, and Mr. Clinton will be on the road for him again on Monday in Pennsylvania, lest that state get its head turned by its new suitor, Mr. Romney.

In Florida, with its crucial Latino vote, Mr. Obama also got a lift on Sunday from Pitbull, a Cuban-American hip-hop artist.

But that is nothing compared to the firepower coming out for the president on Monday. The Obama campaign is hauling out its biggest weapon for dragging blue-collar white voters to the polls: Bruce Springsteen.

He is joining Mr. Obama at all three stops on Monday - Madison, Wis.; Columbus, Ohio; and Des Moines. And lest anyone forget the African-American vote, Jay-Z will also be joining the president in Columbus.

In Des Moines, Mrs. Obama will be onstage with her husband, to talk about the good old days.

Then the president and the first lady will head back to their hometown, Chicago, where they are planning to spend Election Day.

- Helene Cooper

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Fate of Maryland Same-Sex Marriage Ballot Measure Is Uncertain

BYLINE: EMMARIE HUETTEMAN

SECTION: US; politics

LENGTH: 979 words

HIGHLIGHT: Supporters of Maryland's same-sex marriage law hope to parlay the backing of President Obama, who is expected to win the state, into a victory.

For the first time since President Obama endorsed same-sex marriage, four states will ask voters to decide Tuesday whether it is legal, presenting the latest opportunity for supporters to overcome a losing record of appealing directly to voters through referendums.

Supporters of Maryland's same-sex marriage law hope to parlay the backing of Mr. Obama, who is expected to win the state, into a victory. Voters have backed constitutional amendments limiting marriage to a man and a woman in more than 30 states. If efforts to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples in any of the four states succeed Tuesday, it will be the first time that same-sex marriage is legalized by ballot measure.

Six states and Washington, D.C., have legalized same-sex marriage by legislation or a judicial ruling. Following suit, the Maryland and Washington State Legislatures passed laws approving it this year, only to face challenges from opponents who forced referendums on Election Day. Maine, where voters repealed the state's same-sex marriage law in 2009, and Minnesota will also ask voters whether same-sex marriage should be legal.

The Obama campaign announced the president's support for Maryland's law in October as Marylanders for Marriage Equality began broadcasting a radio advertisement featuring Mr. Obama's endorsement of same-sex marriage.

"I think President Obama's endorsement has been a significant factor in more conversations being had in all communities, including the African-American community," said Kevin Nix, communications director of Marylanders for Marriage Equality, adding, "The needle has moved."

But even with the president's support, whether the law will survive Election Day is unclear. Recent polls show a close race, and some experts caution that they may be misleading anyway as voters may be hesitant to voice their opposition to the rights of others, with the vote against legalization often undercounted in polls.

A recent poll by The Baltimore Sun showed likely voters were evenly split on Maryland's referendum. Unlike a Washington Post poll about a week earlier - which showed that likely voters favored the law 52 percent to 43 percent - the Baltimore Sun poll did not use the ballot's wording, highlighting the challenge of polling on ballot measures, which pollsters sometimes rephrase to make them easier to understand in phone surveys. Explaining that opponents had petitioned to get the law on the ballot after it was approved by the legislature and Gov. Martin O'Malley, the Baltimore Sun's poll asked simply, "In November, will you vote to make same-sex marriage legal or illegal in Maryland?" In response, 46 percent said legal while 47 percent said illegal.

In Maryland, which has one of the largest black populations in the country, it's been a fight for black voters. Both sides have featured black ministers and civil rights leaders in their campaign ads. The Maryland Marriage Alliance, the campaign opposing the state's same-sex marriage law, recently aired a radio commercial featuring Alveda King, niece of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a minister, rejecting comparisons between the civil rights movement and efforts to legalize marriage for gay and lesbian couples and arguing Maryland already has protections for them

"It is possible to be tolerant of gay and lesbian rights without redefining marriage, God's holy union," she said in the commercial.

The Maryland Marriage Alliance could not be reached for comment.

In addition to Mr. Obama, the N.A.A.C.P. came out in favor of same-sex marriage this year, and local chapters have been especially active in Maryland, Mr. Nix said. But the Baltimore Sun poll in October showed 50 percent of black voters oppose the law, while 42 percent support it.

Polls show young people are among the strongest supporters of the ballot measures, particularly in Maryland and Washington State. A Baltimore Sun poll in September showed that 61 percent of voters under the age of 35 favor Maryland's law, while just 22 percent oppose it. A recent KCTS 9 Washington poll reported more than 70 percent of registered Washington State voters ages 18 to 29 support the ballot referendum there, where polls show that voters are likely to uphold the state's law legalizing same-sex marriage.

But young voters - who tend to support same-sex marriage in higher numbers than older voters but also tend to vote in lower numbers - are not the only reason the polls are close. A study released in October found that support nationwide for legalizing marriage for gay and lesbian couples has increased across the board since 2004, with even evangelical Protestants expressing stronger support. Third Way, the Washington, D.C.-based research institute that conducted the study, attributed 75 percent of the growth in support to people's changing their minds on the issue.

With the countdown to Election Day down to hours, both sides in Maryland are making their closing arguments to voters. In a commercial released Friday, the Maryland Marriage Alliance warns voters that the portions of the law purporting to protect religious organizations that oppose same-sex marriage have harmful loopholes and that the law will hurt parents' rights to decide what their children are taught in school about same-sex marriage.

Mr. O'Malley, who has thrown his support behind the law he signed, will attend Marylanders for Marriage Equality's election night event in Baltimore, and Mr. Nix is hopeful that they will have reason to celebrate.

"The momentum is on our side," he said. "I think it's still going to be a close race, but I think we can pull it out."

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Presidential Campaign Apps Get to Know You Really Well

BYLINE: SOMINI SENGUPTA

SECTION: TECHNOLOGY

LENGTH: 483 words

HIGHLIGHT: The Obama and Romney campaigns may learn a lot about you, depending on what apps you download.

How well does the next president of the United States know you?

Depends on your apps.

By virtue of what you install on your computer or cellphone, your political preferences can become part of the soup of data that ad networks can mine -- in this case on behalf of the presidential hopefuls, who are making their last push for reluctant or undecided voters.

The Facebook apps of the Obama and Romney campaigns inhale a lot of information about you and your friends. Like many apps on Facebook, they gather your Facebook 'likes' and locations, along with your Facebook friends' 'likes' and locations. Both can post content on your behalf; the Obama campaign app can even post what political contributions you have made.

Brian Kennish, founder of Disconnect.me, which offers browser plug-ins to stave off the data collection, points out the weirdest feature. The Obama app "initiates an unencrypted client-side request to get your profile," which means that if you're using a public wireless connection, anyone with access to the network can see you're using the app.

As for the campaigns' mobile apps, both have little pieces of code embedded in them to enable tracking. Both the Obama and Romney mobile apps send user data to a variety of companies, to serve ads and analyze user behavior, according to an analysis of both by PrivacyChoice, a firm based in Santa Cruz.

In its analysis, PrivacyChoice found that both the Obama and Romney apps sent data to ad networks, though the Obama campaign app appeared to send data to more of them. That would allow the incumbent to send ads not just while a would-be voter was using the Obama app, but also potentially when she was playing a game on her cellphone or reading the news.

Jim Brock, the company founder, observed that digital reach of both campaigns showed how much politicians had come to rely on the harvest of personal data. "The idea that government can regulate a business it has become so dependent on is perhaps a fantasy," he said.

Boston-based Abine, meanwhile, released what it calls a Val-You calculator that seeks to measure how much politicians are willing to pay to advertise to a particular voter. It is based not only on whether you live in a battleground state. It also looks at how much news you consume online and whether you're on Facebook.

Finally, secure.me, a San Francisco-based privacy start-up, compared how political parties collected Facebook data in this country and in Canada and Germany. In those countries, the biggest parties also use Facebook to reach voters, but refrain from grabbing data about their Facebook friends, according to secure.me.

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

In Nevada, a Push to Get Holdouts to the Polls

BYLINE: STEPHANIE SAUL

SECTION: US; politics

LENGTH: 590 words

HIGHLIGHT: In Nevada, where nearly 70 percent of voters had already cast their ballots, both sides pushed forward with fervent last-minute efforts to get the stragglers to polls.

LAS VEGAS -- In Nevada, where nearly 70 percent of voters had already cast their ballots, both sides pushed forward with fervent last-minute efforts to get the stragglers to polls.

Figures released by elections officials showed that Democrats held an edge of more than 40,000 voters by the time early voting ended last week. In Clark County, the state's most populous, more Democrats had voted early this year than in 2008.

With the advantage apparently for President Obama in early voting, Mitt Romney's campaign had imported a 600-member volunteer army from nearby states. The group gathered Monday morning at the Las Vegas offices of Brady Industries, a facility supply distributor.

The volunteers were dispatched in 40 vans to Las Vegas-area neighborhoods, where they planned to walk door to door, guiding by walking lists of conservative voters. After sundown they planned to return to Brady Industries, where the company had donated space for a large phone bank.

One of the volunteers was Lisa Vander, 50, of San Diego, who said she was unemployed despite an "incredible" résumé and blames it on the current economy. "It's really about jobs jobs jobs," Ms. Vander said. She said she believed Mr. Romney would do more for the economy.

Mr. Romney's running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, began his day Monday with a final campaign stop in Reno. Later in the day, Craig Romney, Mr. Romney's Spanish-speaking son, was to hold a rally on the heavily Hispanic east side of Las Vegas.

The state's Hispanic vote -- about 25 percent of the total -- was viewed as critical. The organization Mi Familia Vota had worked to make sure Hispanics registered and went to the polls in early voting. On Tuesday the group is planning to drive additional voters to polling places. The effort appears to have been successful. In Clark County, the home of Las Vegas, early voting among those with Hispanic surnames outstripped turnout in 2008 by more than 12,000 voters. The group skews heavily Democratic.

The Obama campaign was also working to scrape up every remaining vote. At a senior housing complex in downtown Las Vegas named after Senator Harry Reid, Betty Barfield, a volunteer coordinator for the Obama campaign, was sitting outside in her wheel chair. Half the complex of 100 apartments had voted early, Ms. Barfield said. She had arranged for two buses to come take the remaining residents to polls on Tuesday. Almost all of them will vote for Mr. Obama, she said.

"It's really been a joy and a privilege for me," said Ms. Barfield, a minister who is African-American. "I never thought I would see this and it would happen in my lifetime. I thank God for letting me live long enough."

She has also held phone banks and Obama meetings at the senior complex, many of them catered. The Obama campaign supplied ice cream for one of them. "Any time you want people to come and hear what you have to say, you must have free food," Ms. Barfield said.

Morning television viewers in Las Vegas on Monday were bombarded with back-to-back commercials paid for by both the candidates and outside groups supporting both sides. Campaign-weary Nevadans said they were particularly tired of the negative advertising in the race between Senator Dean Heller, a Republican, against his Democratic opponent, Representative Shelley Berkley.

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DOCUMENT-TYPE: News

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

In swing states: 48%-48%;
With minds made up, vote 'comes down to turnout'

BYLINE: Susan Page, @susanpage, USA TODAY

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 1A

LENGTH: 2183 words

Voters in the nation's key battlegrounds have become as enthusiastic and engaged in the 2012 presidential election as they were in the historic contest four years ago, and they finally have made up their minds about President Obama and Mitt Romney.

It's a tie: 48%-48%.

The even split among likely voters in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of Swing States reflects gains in the campaign's final weeks by Obama, who has closed a 4-percentage-point deficit from early October in the wake of a disappointing first debate. Most of the interviews were completed before Hurricane Sandy hit, and the president's disaster response may have bolstered his standing a bit since then.

The 11th and final Swing States Poll, a USA TODAY series that began a year ago, finds voters increasingly excited about the election and settled in their support. They say they have a clear idea what each candidate would do if elected -- though that has caused some alarm. Most express concern that a President Romney would return to failed GOP policies and that a re-elected Obama would rely too much on Big Government.

As Election Day approaches, Obama leads 50%-46% among registered voters. That's the first time since Romney clinched the Republican nomination last spring that either candidate has reached the 50% threshold -- and it's the widest margin during that time.

The poll was taken in the dozen battlegrounds most likely to determine the outcome in the Electoral College: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In a sign of their importance, one or both of the presidential candidates held events during the campaign's final days in nine of those 12 states -- and neither stumped anywhere else.

In polls of individual states, aggregated by RealClearPolitics.com, Obama has an edge in nine battlegrounds, including a narrow 2.8-point lead in crucial Ohio. Romney leads in two, Florida and North Carolina, and Virginia is essentially even. Combined national polls put Obama at 47.5%, Romney at 47.3%.

Senior strategists in both campaigns saw encouraging signs in the USA TODAY findings.

Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, said the president has gained momentum and now leads narrowly in statewide polls in most battlegrounds because a stark economic choice has "crystallized" for voters, especially in the three debates. "People understand that this president is on their side," he said in an interview. "People know he's going to fight for them every single day."

Neil Newhouse, Romney's pollster, notes the closeness of the race. "The bottom line is, we're looking at this as a dead heat, a jump-ball kind of race that's tied right now, and we've got an intensity advantage. That kind of enthusiasm advantage translates into a turnout advantage on Election Day," he said in an interview. "The election now comes down to turnout, to intensity, to ground game."

Obama has improved his standing in the past few weeks by regaining support among women in the swing states. The gender gap -- that is, the disparity between the way men and women vote -- stands at historically high levels after narrowing in the early October. Obama now leads among women by 16 points; Romney leads among men by 10.

Romney leads among white men by a yawning 27 points; the two candidates divide white women evenly. The former Massachusetts governor leads among independent voters by a single point.

'Sending a message'

Allison Fitzwater, 42, of Viroqua, Wis., voted for Obama four years ago and, despite some disappointments, was determined to support him again from the opening days of the campaign. "I like the changes I've seen so far and I want them to continue," the high-school science teacher, who was among those polled, said in a follow-up interview.

Scott Cunningham, 28, a chemist from Sparks, Nev., decided in just the past week or two to cast his vote for Romney and against the president.

"It has everything to do with sending a message that, like any other job, if you get hired to do a four-year job or a six-month contract, if you're not doing a good job at the end of that period, you're going away," he said. "In the beginning, (Obama's) message was, 'Give me a shot, coach; put me in; I can play.' Well, you got your chance. You can't say, 'I need a little more time.'"

Obama has lost some luster over the past four years -- perhaps no surprise after a tenure launched during an economic crisis.

He won all 12 of the swing states in 2008, carrying 53.9% of their combined vote over Republican John McCain. This time, given the divide between solidly Republican and solidly Democratic states elsewhere, he needs to claim close to half of their 151 electoral votes to amass the 270-vote total that will give him four more years in the White House.

Registered voters are less likely to identify themselves as Democrats now than they were four years ago. In the Swing States survey, 37% call themselves Democrats, down 4 points from 2008; 29% call themselves Republicans, up 3 points. The percentage of independents is 34% now, 32% then.

At the end of the 2008 campaign, 63% of registered voters in the battlegrounds had a favorable impression of Obama; now, 55% do.

The percentage who see him as a strong leader has declined 11 points, to 53%. Those who say he understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives has dropped 14 points, to 60%.

Romney continues to hold an advantage on the economy, which Americans identify as the most important issue this year by far. Voters prefer him over Obama in handling the economy by 3 points and in handling the federal budget deficit by 10 points. The former Massachusetts governor is seen as a stronger leader and the candidate who could do a better job managing the federal government.

"I just feel like the economy will recover a bit faster if he were to become president," says Raymond Perez, 33, a registered nurse from Miami who plans to vote for the Republican.

In what is one of this year's enduring puzzles, however, Romney has struggled to pull decisively ahead with voters despite their preference for him on their most important issue -- perhaps because he hasn't convinced many of them that he understands their lives and will protect their interests.

"He just doesn't really have a clue about how others live," Fitzwater says, mentioning the secretly recorded video in which Romney spoke dismissively of the 47% of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes. "He seems to think that people with money need to keep their money, while I see people with money having a responsibility to help those who aren't as well off as they are."

Obama is favored in handling everything except the economy and the deficit -- on foreign affairs, national security, energy, health care and taxes. And the president continues to be viewed as more empathetic than Romney. Six in 10 say Obama "understands the problems Americans face in their daily lives."

Just 45% say that of Romney.

How are you feeling?

A year ago, voters in the battlegrounds weren't particularly excited about this presidential race.

In the first Swing States Poll, in October 2011, fewer than half said they were enthusiastic about the election. That number rose only to 51% in late January, during the heat of the battle for the Republican nomination.

That's 10 points lower than at that point in 2008, when there were nomination fights in both parties.

The percentage of voters who said they had given "quite a lot" of thought to the election was significantly lower at the beginning of the year as well.

Now, though, Americans are as engaged in the election as they were in the groundbreaking contest four years ago, which featured the first African-American candidate for president on the Democratic ticket and Sarah Palin for vice president on the GOP side. Eighty-six percent of registered voters say they have given quite a lot of thought to the election, just about the same percentage who said that at the end of the campaigns in 2008 and 2004. It's considerably higher than the number who felt that way in 2000 and 1996.

Increased voter interest generally could signal another high-turnout election.

The increase in enthusiasm is particularly pronounced among women, especially middle-aged and senior women. The proportion of women who say they are extremely enthusiastic has more than doubled in the past year; it has nearly tripled among those 50 and older.

Overall, Republicans continue to have an enthusiasm advantage, though it has narrowed in the past year. In October 2011, a third of Republican voters were extremely enthusiastic about the presidential election, more than double the number of Democrats who felt that way.

Now, 51% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats say they're excited about it.

Ann Freund, 47, a homemaker from Hudson, Ohio, who supports Obama, acknowledges his campaign is less electrifying this time than it was four years ago.

"As a country, we've all been through some rough times, so it's hard to generate that same enthusiasm," she says. "It's like when you get married, and four years later, the stars aren't in your eyes anymore. You lost your job; you had a baby; you had to move across the country or whatever. You have those bumps in the road with your life together. And with President Obama, right off the bat we had tons of (trouble)."

When Romney clinched the GOP nomination last spring, there were a lot of undecided voters for the two candidates to battle for: Nearly a third said they hadn't made up their minds. Now, fewer than one in 10 say it's possible they'll change their minds. In fact, 22% already have cast ballots in early or absentee voting; they broke narrowly for Romney.

What has influenced voters' decisions?

More than six in 10 cite the debates, and half say editorials or commentary mattered. More than a third were affected by the political conventions. But to the skepticism of experts, voters downplayed the power of all those campaign ads. Fewer than one in four say the TV spots affected their vote.

"Seeing the debates kind of solidified my decision," says Lori Cook, 49, a human-resources manager from Roanoke, Va., who was among those surveyed. "After seeing the debates, I felt more comfortable with my decision." She is backing Romney, though she sounds less than thrilled by her options. "Well, there's only the two to choose from," she notes.

The Swing States Poll of 1,183 registered voters, including 1,077 likely voters, was taken Oct. 27-31 by landline and cellphone. The national survey of 1,447 registered voters was taken Nov. 1-2 for comparison purposes. Each has an error margin of +/-4 points. The head-to-head matchup is based on interviews with 2,192 registered voters and 1,984 likely voters in the Swing States Poll and the Gallup daily poll taken in those 12 states from Oct. 22-28. It has a margin of error of +/-3 points.

Swing states residents describe being deluged by campaign ads on TV and courted by volunteers on the phone and at the front door. Freund has gotten robo-calls from Mitt Romney and from Ann Romney. Freund's 12-year-old son, Alex, managed to shake hands with former president Bill Clinton at a rally Thursday.

Fifty percent of voters in the battlegrounds say the Romney campaign has contacted them by e-mail, phone, mail or in person; 49% say they've heard from the Obama campaign. (In contrast, just a third of Americans nationwide say they've had personal contact from each campaign.)

The impact of all that attention isn't always positive.

Carol Mack, 63, is principal of the Matthew Thorton Elementary School in Londonderry, N.H., where the students made voting booths from refrigerator boxes and held a mock election Friday.

"I noticed that the children were quoting sound bites from the commercials," Mack said with dismay. "One child says to me, 'You should vote for Romney; Obama is destroying the country!'"

Their ballots will be counted Monday, a day before those cast by adults across the country.

Worries about Washington

In follow-up interviews, voters of all stripes express concerns about the country's direction and the ability of Washington to fix the country's woes.

Judy Sessoms, 67, an Obama supporter from Bladen County, N.C., hopes there will be less of the sharp partisanship that has divided Washington. "I hope it'll change with the election," she says, but she worries it won't. "Some people seem to be very entrenched in their desire to just continue to say 'no'" to the other side, she says.

"I feel like there's more at stake this time than usual," says Cook, who supports Romney in part because he was able to work across party lines as governor of Democratic-dominated Massachusetts. "There's a lot of gridlock in Congress, and it's too bad that there can't be more partisan efforts made on a lot of things."

When voters in the swing states were asked in an open-ended question to describe the long campaign in a word or two, they divided about evenly between positive words ("intense," "good") and negative ones ("nasty," "lies").

The most frequent response was "interesting," and the second was "important."

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: GRAPHIC, Color, Julie Snider, USA TODAY (line graph)
GRAPHIC, B/W, Julie Snider, USA TODAY (bar graph)

DOCUMENT-TYPE: COVER STORY

PUBLICATION-TYPE: NEWSPAPER

Era of national division yields a need for problem-solvers;
Voters' priorities differ, so no single choice fits everybody

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 10A

LENGTH: 691 words

Looked at through a pessimistic lens -- the one so relentlessly applied by the producers of political commercials -- voters face a dreary choice Tuesday.

Should they cast their ballots for President Obama, who has racked up record debt, gotten the economy moving at only a limping pace, and generally failed to bring Washington to the kumbaya moment that he promised in 2008?

Or should they spurn the incumbent in favor of the Republican nominee, who has changed positions so many times that his core beliefs are hard to discern? Is Mitt Romney the pragmatic moderate of the recent presidential debates, or the conservative hard-liner of the primaries?

There's no denying the negatives in either case. The records are clear.

But dwelling on them is mostly a distraction. It obscures the bigger question voters face Tuesday, which is not just about the individuals but also about which direction the country should move.

Not since the post-Civil War era has the nation been so politically divided for so long. If the polls are right, this will be the third election of the last four with a winning margin of fewer than 4 percentage points -- doubling the total for the past 100 years. It could also be the second time since 2000, and just the third since 1888, that a candidate has won the popular vote and lost the national election.

The trend in Congress is the same. Majorities have been consistently smaller over the past two decades than at any time since women were given the right to vote. And, as everyone knows, the parties are increasingly polarized.

Small wonder, then, the country has worked itself into such a mess -- deep in debt, divided on a host of social issues, and deadlocked on the current version of the USA's centuries-long argument about the role of the federal government.

Unless the polls are wildly off, the fight won't be settled Tuesday. But one side or the other will get an upper hand at a pivotal moment, with weighty consequences.

ObamaCare will live or die with the result. Romney says he'd gut it by executive order; Obama's re-election would preserve it until 2014, when many of its provisions take force.

Roe v. Wade may live or die, as well. One more conservative vote on the Supreme Court would likely spell its demise. On other hand, should a conservative be replaced by a liberal, the court's 5-4 majorities on a host of issues could tip the other way.

In foreign affairs, Romney has steadily narrowed his differences with Obama, but in the spring he struck a more bellicose stance. The outcome could decide whether to launch a war with Iran and how to end the one in Afghanistan, as well as the fate of relations with the Middle East and China.

The list goes on.

Unlike other publications, we do not presume to tell our readers which choice is right for them. We've expressed opinions on all those issues. But telling readers how to balance them is another matter. The family of a soldier in Afghanistan is likely to have different priorities from a worker struggling to find a job or a young woman trying to cope with an unwanted pregnancy. There isn't one universal right choice, even for members of our ideologically diverse Editorial Board. Nor do we care to be aligned with either party. We routinely criticize both and try to point a path to consensus, because if Congress does not find one soon, few American lives will be unharmed.

All by itself, failure to reach a compromise that would avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, not just two months away, would plunge the nation back into recession. With power so closely divided, chances that either side will get to dictate the solution are zero.

So our advice to voters is this: Stay true to your convictions, whether or not they happen to match ours, but vote for the candidates who you believe will respect the voters' choice and govern, not just shout from the ideological ramparts in the false belief that they can win all at once.

This extraordinary period of national division will end one day. The challenge is to elect candidates who can steer the nation there without creating the sort of cataclysm that has sometimes ended such divisions in the past.

LOAD-DATE: November 6, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: NEWSPAPER

On campaign's last day, Obama heads to Iowa;
Final-hour rallies also set for Ohio and Wisconsin

BYLINE: David Jackson, USA TODAY,

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. 4A

LENGTH: 637 words

President Obama will end his last day of campaigning today in the state where his presidential drive began: Iowa.

Obama hosts a rally the eve of Election Day in Des Moines exactly four years, 10 months and two days after his victory in the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucuses propelled him to his party's nomination, and on to the White House.

"I started my presidential journey right here," Obama said during a Saturday re-election rally in Dubuque, another frequently visited Iowa city.

Before Iowa, Obama also headlines last-day rallies in Wisconsin and Ohio. Right around midnight, Obama is scheduled to travel back to his home in Chicago, where he is scheduled to spend Election Day.

The Des Moines event caps a frantic stretch run in which the incumbent president has focused on eight swing states that will likely decide his race against Republican challenger Mitt Romney: Iowa, Ohio, Wisconsin, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

On Sunday, from the blustery winds here in Concord to the sunny skies of Hollywood, Fla., Obama echoed a "final argument" stump speech in which he said his domestic policies are reviving an economy near collapse in 2008, and that his foreign policies are forging a safer world.

During an outdoor rally at the old state courthouse in chilly Concord, Obama told 14,000 supporters that "we have made real progress," citing job increases, the health care law, new financial regulations and education and energy programs. He promoted the end of the war in Iraq, the winding down of the war in Afghanistan and the 2010 raid that killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Obama also sought to revive warm memories of the economic boom of the 1990s, saying his policies are basically the same as those of Democratic predecessor Bill Clinton. The former president joined Obama on the stump in New Hampshire, as well as during a Saturday event at a music pavilion in Northern Virginia.

Meanwhile, Obama sought to link Romney to Republican George W. Bush. Obama said that, like Bush, Romney would cut taxes for the rich and reduce regulations on business, and again cripple the economy. Tuesday's election is a choice "between a return to the top-down policies that crashed our economy, and an economy that's built from the middle out and the bottom up and creates a strong, growing middle class," Obama said in New Hampshire.

In his final weekend dash, Obama said he is creating change, while Romney wants to return to a discredited Republican past. "We know what change looks like, and what he's selling ain't it," Obama said of Romney during his stop in Hollywood, Fla.

The final day begins with a rally in Madison. While Wisconsin has been a Democratic state in recent presidential elections, Obama is trying to fend off a late charge by Romney and running mate Paul Ryan, a Badger State native. The president plays the celebrity card in Madison; singer/songwriter Bruce Springsteen is scheduled to perform there.

He and his entourage then journey to what may be the biggest state of all: Ohio. A rally at Nationwide Arena in Columbus will also feature Springsteen, as well as musician Jay-Z.

The president then takes the sentimental journey to Iowa. First lady Michelle Obama will introduce her husband at the rally in the historic Des Moines commercial and residential area known as East Village.

Obama has often expressed his fondness for the Hawkeye State. His 2008 win there established him as a formidable national candidate. He rode that momentum all the way to the White House.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Iowa is a place of "special importance" for the president and his supporters. "That's where we proved in 2008 that people coming together to organize their communities was still the most powerful force in American politics and the way to bring change," he said.

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: NEWSPAPER

John Boehners got nothing on me

BYLINE: Ed O'Keefe

LENGTH: 463 words

COLUMBUS -- Mitt Romney's state headquarters was buzzing Monday morning, with volunteers handing out tickets for Monday night's campaign rally at the airport and about 20 volunteers making last-minute phone calls to voters.

Amid the scrum, a constant presence: Rick Datchuk, 62, who lives down the street and has been volunteering for Romney since February. His commitment to the campaign is perhaps best captured in a Post photograph, used frequently in recent weeks, of Datchuk gripping two phones to make simultaneous calls to potential supporters. For this reporter, Datchuk was instantly recognizable, and meeting him here was mere coincidence.

"It's not as hard as it looks, making two calls at once," he said Monday."I'm doing my small part to save America."

After making about 20,000 phone calls -- many of which led to expletive-laden hangups -- Datchuk will be rewarded Monday night with the task of leading Romney supporters at the campaign rally in the Pledge of Allegiance.

That is, if he can hold it together.

Datchuk is a tall, burly man, a former Marine with a career as a commercial construction manager and architect. But he's also a "teddy bear," his fellow volunteers said, a frequentcrier who chokes up regularly as he thinks of the prospects of a Romney victory, of what it would mean to put the country back on course after four years of unkept promises and unanswered questions from President Obama.

"There's so much money outtherewaiting to be spent, and people don't know what to do," Datchuk said. "There's a lot of fear out there."

He recalled meeting Ann Romney a few weeks ago at the campaign office: "I told her I don't have enough money to donate $1 million or do bundle for them," he said. "So I told her that all I can do is donate my energy, my time and my talent."

And with that, the tears started flowing.

"John Boehner's got nothing on me," he said, referring to the tear-prone Speaker of the House. "There's two things I care about: My kids and my country."

If Romney wins on Tuesday, "I'm going to be crying," he said.

And if President Obama wins? "You don't want to be around. You'll need high-water boots," he said.

Datchuk said he's met volunteers who traveled from California, Oregon, Texas and New Jersey to make phone calls, knowing that they need to help Romney in Ohio in order to win the White House.

Datchuk's mix of emotions -- pride, hope and exhaustion -- appeared to personify what many in the room were feeling Monday: That enough Republicans and independents will vote Tuesday to help Romney win. If it happens, they'll know they did their part.

But few will react as emotionally as Datchuk.

"You see that bumper sticker over there: Believe in America.' That's not a bumper sticker for me. That's reality," he said.

The tears flowed again.

LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2013

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Arkansas misses Bill Clinton as he campaigns for Obama

BYLINE: Suzi Parker

LENGTH: 725 words

Arkansas seems like the most boring state in the country right now.

2012 is so vastly different from various other years. For decades, a political junkie here always had a healthy dose of Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee.

We have to catch glimpses of our native son on television giving rousing speeches and losing his voice in support of President Obama. On Saturday night in Virginia, Clinton gave a lengthy speech before introducing Obama at a rally. After the campaign event, Clinton joined the president on stage with Clinton's 1992 campaign anthem Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow blaring over the loud speakers.

Arkansas is not a swing state, with its measly six electoral votes, but it's amazing how unimportant the place has become to national politicians in a mere few years.

Four years ago, Arkansans were immersed in the middle of the Hillary Clinton primary against Obama. Meanwhile, Huckabee, the state's former governor, was also giving John McCain a run for his money.

Obama hasn't visited Clintonland since 2006 when as a U.S. senator he campaigned for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Beebe. In 2010, Michelle Obama gave a commencement speech at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. But since then, national Democrats have been far and few between visiting the Natural State.

Then again, so have Republicans.

Mitt Romney popped into Arkansas earlier this year for a private high dollar fundraiser. He took the money and ran without meeting voters or reporters. Mike Huckabee attended a Republican fundraiser last Saturday in Little Rock but the focus was on state legislative races. That's because the Arkansas GOP has a very good chance of taking control of both chambers of the legislature for the first time in 138 years, and the Koch brothers have invested heavily in Arkansas for this to happen.

Back in 2004, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) made a campaign appearance in Little Rock, and Bill Clinton appeared the weekend before Election Day for a get-out-the-vote event. John and Elizabeth Edwards visited Arkansas several times, too. Even before Kerry became the Democratic nominee, Arkansas was psyched to have home state candidate General Wesley Clark running in the Democratic primary.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney didn't ignore Arkansas either. They made numerous appearances in 2004 and 2000. So did Al Gore, who could have easily ignored it because part of his campaign strategy was to distance himself from Clinton. Gore even appeared in a stuffy American Legion Hut, giving a speech under a sparkly disco ball while John Mellencamp songs blasted.

Even in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan visited Arkansas twice. Jimmy Carter did, too, in 1975 and 1980. John F. Kennedy visited four times. Other presidents -- Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Benjamin Harris -- also came to Arkansas. And as far back as 1841, Zachary Taylor visited the western part of the state.

Arkansans don't even have hotly contested congressional races this year. For the first time in decades, all four congressional seats are likely to swing Republican. No one seems terribly excited or worried about this.

The only issue anyone is discussing and discussing is putting it strongly is a ballot initiative that would make medical marijuana legal. Arkansas would be the first state in the South to legalize the drug for medicinal purposes. Polls show that the measure is likely to fail, but it may be the one issue that gets people to the polls on Tuesday. Candidates certainly won't.

Clinton hasn't forgotten his state completely as he criss-crosses the country for Obama. He has cut a radio ad for the Arkansas Black Political Caucus that supports Democratic candidates. He also condemns the pro-slavery writings and racist leanings of three GOP candidates. On Monday, Clinton also endorsed an old Dem friend, Herb Rule, who is running for Congress against Republican incumbent Tim Griffin.

But most Arkansans are gearing up for 2016. They hope Hillary Clinton will run for president or even that Huckabee may give it another shot. Arkansans are hungry for attention. But they just may have to wait until Chelsea Clinton turns 35 and makes a bid for the White House.

Suzi Parker is an Arkansas-based political and cultural journalist and author of Sex in the South: Unbuckling the Bible Belt. Follow her on Twitter at @SuziParker

LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2013

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

With the end near, still some unknowns

BYLINE: Chris Cillizza

SECTION: A section; Pg. A02

LENGTH: 928 words

In 48 hours we will (probably) know the identity of the man who will be president of the United States for the next four years.

Even though the end of this long, strange trip is nearly here, questions remain about the size and shape of the electorate, the true swing-state battlefield on which President Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will fight over these next two days, and the factors that will ultimately push the sliver of undecided voters to make up their minds.

We lay out five of the most pressing questions.

1.Enthusiasm or organization? Most polls suggest that Republican voters are more amped to vote in this election than are Democrats. According to Washington Post-ABC News tracking-poll data, 80 percent of Republican adults are registered to vote and are absolutely certain to vote or have already voted, compared with 70 percent of Democratic adults. But even the most loyal Romney allies acknowledge privately that the ground operation Obama has built over the past six years - and honed over the past four - is superior to what the Republican presidential nominee has been able to put together since emerging as his party's pick in April. What Tuesday will prove is what matters more: an enthusiasm advantage or an organizational edge. Conventional wisdom dictates that either could boost a candidate's showing by a point or two. But if enthusiasm is working for Romney and organization is working for Obama, do they offset each other and turn this question into a push? And if organization and enthusiasm cancel each other out, then who wins?

2.Is the playing field expanding? In the last 10 days of the campaign, Romney and his allies have made investments of time and money in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota amid polling that suggests all three are single-digit contests. (Pennsylvania appears to be the closest, while Michigan still looks like a long-ish shot.) Romney staged a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday - his first of the general-election campaign - and his campaign is spending nearly $2 million on TV ads in the Keystone State in the final week. But Pennsylvania has proved to be a Republican trap in recent presidential elections - GOP candidates have been able to earn 48 percent but never 50 percent plus one. (The last Republican to win Pennsylvania was George H.W. Bush in 1988; in the five elections since then, Republican nominees have averaged 43 percent of the vote.) Without Pennsylvania, Romney faces a narrow path to 270 electoral votes - he all but has to win Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio. A win in Pennsylvania broadens that path considerably.

3.Where do independents end up? The story of the past several elections has been the wide swings among independent voters. In 2004, George W. Bush (R) lost independents by one point to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Four years later, Obama carried unaffiliated voters by eight points over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). (The independent swings have been even more pronounced in midterm elections; in 2006, independents voted for Democratic candidates by 18 points but four years later went for Republican candidates by 19 points.) In Post-ABC tracking polls over the past 10 days, Obama has regularly trailed Romney among independents by double digits. But in Saturday's tracking, the incumbent had pulled into a tie with these voters. If independents do move to Obama in the race's final hours, expect much focus to fall on Hurricane Sandy and Obama's handling of the disaster. Independents love the idea of politicians working together to solve problems, and Obama's trip to New Jersey to tour the devastation with Republican Gov. Chris Christie could have moved some unaffiliated voters to his side.

4.Will young people support Obama again?And in what numbers? One of the biggest myths of the 2008 election was that Obama drastically increased the number of 18-to-29-year-olds who voted. In 2004, 18-to-29-year-olds constituted 17 percent of the electorate. They made up 18 percent of it in 2008. The difference? Kerry won that youthful age group by nine points nationally; Obama won it by 34 points. Given that, the key for Obama on Tuesday is not to expand the share of the electorate that 18-to-29-year-olds make up but rather to ensure that it doesn't dip significantly, with the young people who vote doing so in something close to the percentages they did four years ago. Polling suggests that enthusiasm (as measured by likelihood to vote) among 18-to-29-year-olds has drifted off from four years ago, but the Obama campaign has placed a giant bet on being able to motivate and turn out these younger voters.

5.How big is the gender gap? Democrats have spent lots of time in this election driving a narrative that Republicans are conducting a "war on women," pointing to some of the policies espoused by GOP candidates on contraception and abortion - not to mention decidedly impolitic comments made by Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana on rape. But national polling suggests that Romney is trailing Obama by mid- to high single digits among women - a margin that would rank among the smallest gender gaps in modern presidential history if it holds. McCain lost women by 13 points in 2008, George W. Bush lost them by 11 points in 2000, and Bob Dole lost the female vote by a whopping 16 points in 1996. Democrats insist - and some polling data confirm - that Romney is having more trouble among female voters in targeted swing states where the Obama ad onslaught on Romney's record has been focused.

chris.cillizza@wpost.com

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication

SECTION: A section; Pg. A02

LENGTH: 415 words

QUOTE OF THE WEEK "If you hadn't had the storm, there would have been more of a chance for the Romney campaign to talk about the deficit, the debt, the economy. There was a stutter in the campaign. When you have attention drawn away to somewhere else, to something else, it is not to his advantage."

- Karl Rove, in an interview Friday with The Washington Post's Michael Leahy

BY THE NUMBERS

1 million The campaigns of President Obama and Mitt Romney and their allies have aired more than 1 million TV ads this cycle, according to a Wesleyan Media Project analysis, a figure that easily outpaces all previous elections. As many residents of swing states are realizing in the final days of the race, it's hard to turn on a television without immediately being bombarded by campaign commercials.

1.6 millionThe number of Ohioans who had voted by mail or in person as of Friday, according to the secretary of state's office there. The tally puts the Buckeye State on a trajectory to surpass 2008 totals. Democrats waged a high-profile legal battle to keep polls open to all voters this weekend and believe their victory in the fight will pay dividends for Obama.

0The number of times a Republican presidential nominee has won the White House without carrying Ohio. Obama's slight lead in recent polling in the state underscores the difficult map Romney is facing. If he doesn't carry the Buckeye State, Romney will have to defy history to win the White House.

BEST THING THATHAPPENED TO REPUBLICANS

The map expanded. Polls in some blue-leaning states got tighter, and GOP groups began launching ads in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and New Mexico. For Mitt Romney, whose electoral-college math is difficult, the prospect of expanding the map is a welcome one. The question is whether Romney and his allies are doing it because he desperately needs to or because the opportunity is there.

BEST THING THATHAPPENED TO DEMOCRATS

President Obama earned praise for his response to Hurricane Sandy. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), a top surrogate for Romney's campaign, even praised Obama, and by the weekend, big-name Republicans such as Karl Rove and Haley Barbour acknowledged that Obama's response to the storm had effectively cost Romney votes. This has been a great opportunity for Obama to be presidential, and he has passed the test so far.

- Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication

Political films' timing tightrope

BYLINE: Ann Hornaday

SECTION: Style; Pg. C01

LENGTH: 1672 words

The release of a politically themed movie at the height of a contentious election is nearly always fraught with peril, even when the subject is perhaps the most transcendent figure in American political history. But Steven Spielberg, whose movie "Lincoln" opens in Washington on Friday, believes the timing couldn't be better.

"This is a good time to reintroduce Lincoln to the country," the director argued at his New York office recently, "in a period of time when the ground will still be smoldering after the first Tuesday in November."

There's little question that "Lincoln" - which revisits the highly charged period when Lincoln faced down a fractious Congress to bully through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, permanently abolishing slavery - will draw large audiences curious to see how actor Daniel Day-Lewis inhabits the title role and eager to commune, at least cinematically, with one of the country's most cherished leaders.

Still, it's just as likely that "Lincoln" will resonate very differently with some viewers Nov. 9 depending on what happens Nov. 6. (The film hits theaters throughout the country Nov. 16.) If President Obama is reelected, his most ardent supporters may well see an allegory for their own candidate's last four years of navigating partisan rancor to effect sweeping change. If he loses, Lincoln will embody the very character and political genius that Obama's detractors insist he lacked throughout an administration marked by squandered promise and ideological gridlock.

With both parties claiming the 16th president as their own, doesn't that mean that half the electorate might avoid "Lincoln" as a painful reminder of what might have been?

Spielberg doesn't think so. "I think the timing is the right way to go," he said. "Either way, the film, I think, will hopefully have some kind of soothing or even healing effect."

"Lincoln" screenwriter Tony Kushner agreed, noting that, "whatever happens, one of the lessons you take from the life of Lincoln is that you have to have faith in the democratic process," he said. "And you have to keep faith with it. Had the South not seceded at that moment, had they stayed in and fought [politically] . . . 600,000 people might not have gone to their deaths on a battlefield. An easy recourse to despair and contempt for the system was as active and virulent in the days of the Civil War as it is now . . . but if you believe in equality and justice and really, in a certain sense, in government, you have to keep working towards building a better society that our still-functioning democracy allows."

The dynamics of when to release a politically themed film can be dicey, with millions of dollars in production and marketing budgets at stake. Oliver Stone brought out "W.," his satirical portrait of George W. Bush, in the waning months of Bush's second administration, and viewers stayed away - not only was such an assessment of his presidency premature, most observers agreed, but it wasn't nearly as compelling as the Obama-McCain campaign unfolding in real life. In 2000, "Thirteen Days," a movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, arrived in theaters in the toxic aftermath of the Bush v. Gorere-count. The film was only a modest success, perhaps because audiences were exhausted after a season of political strife. But "Thirteen Days" wound up being politically pivotal, playing an important role in Bush's nascent first term when he invited Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to a private screening in the White House.

Philip Zelikow, whose book about the missile crisis inspired the film and who attended the White House screening, says he didn't realize how pivotal the occasion would become, both substantively and symbolically. "Ted Kennedy would become perhaps [Bush's] single most important congressional ally in the months before 9/11" on health reform, Zelikow says. "So as an icebreaker with Ted Kennedy, I think [the screening] mattered. And the Bush people certainly picked it up and handled it in the appropriately graceful way. The movie gave them the occasion to remind people that the president is bigger than a political party."

Politics have threaded their way through a number of movies that were or are about to be released this year. On Sunday, the National Geographic Channel aired "SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama bin Laden," a docu-drama that's hard not to see as timed by its producer - Obama supporter Harvey Weinstein - to remind voters of one of the president's greatest strategic successes. (Last month, Weinstein released the conservative-tweaking political satire "Butter," starring Jennifer Garner as a thinly veiled amalgam of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin.)

Weinstein and National Geographic officials have insisted that the air date of "SEAL Team Six" wasn't intended to sway the election but instead to head off "Zero Dark Thirty," a theatrical feature about the search for bin Laden due out later this year. That film ran into its own political buzz saw in 2011 when U.S. Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.) accused the White House of leaking classified details of the mission to screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow in order to burnish Obama's image. "Zero Dark Thirty" was scheduled for release in October until its distributor, Columbia Pictures, pushed the film back to December. (It will now open in New York and Los Angeles in December before opening throughout the country in January. The Weinstein Company similarly repositioned "Killing Them Softly," a crime thriller starring Brad Pitt that alternates scenes of pulverizing violence with lacerating critiques of the current economy that spare neither Bush nor Obama.)

Boal insists that neither he or Bigelow have discussed how the election results will impact "Zero Dark Thirty," either at the box office or as a cultural milestone. The question "hasn't come up at all," he wrote in an e-mail. Noting that the film is about career intelligence and military professionals, not the White House, Boal added, it "has no partisan agenda whatsoever. To me, the charges otherwise were completely bogus. But I hope people will see the movie and judge for themselves."

As for the shifts in release dates, Boal says that decision was purely commercial; opening a movie in a few theaters in December and into January is a time-honored strategy for garnering award nominations and capitalizing on the ensuing buzz.

Still, it can't hurt that "Zero Dark Thirty" will be appearing on screens after this year's political rancor has dissipated. Studios rarely leave such things to chance: Marketing campaigns for big-studio films routinely engage focus groups and other research strategies to predict whether and how a film will resonate with viewers. Even if filmgoers make present-day comparisons through a partisan lens while watching "Lincoln," for example, the filmmakers are banking on patriotism transcending politics, as viewers encounter one of the country's most beloved historical figures at the height of his powers and personal charisma.

In fact, "Lincoln" contains all the elements that spell success for a political-themed movie, according to director Rod Lurie, who has made a career-long study of what makes such films succeed. "It has to be about a president, not someone in the legislature or the Supreme Court, because anything other than president is petty," Lurie said. "It has to be aspirational. We don't want to go see movies about bad presidents who are dark and evil - we get enough of that at home. And usually it has to be nonpartisan."

In October 2000, Lurie released his political thriller "The Contender," just as the Bush-Gore campaign was nearing its breathless conclusion. Although the film was a critical success and earned Oscar nominations for Jeff Bridges and Joan Allen, Lurie believes that its left-leaning sensibility, as well as negative sniping from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and critic Michael Medved, alienated conservative filmgoers.

"It was almost a political statement not to have gone to that film," he said.

Dustin Lance Black, who wrote "Milk," about gay rights leader Harvey Milk, said that he and director Gus Van Sant had wanted the film to come out before the election in 2008, and perhaps influence the debate surrounding California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state.

Instead, "Milk" came out just after the election. But, Black notes now, "It served as something I never expected it to. It served as a refocusing and education tool for the younger generation, to start fighting this struggle differently. . . . A lot of individuals and certain organizations took a moment and looked back to Milk's era to examine why he was winning in a more homophobic time. We started to correct some of the missteps we were making in the '90s, and I think 'Milk' was a piece of that."

As for films currently in the pipeline, it's an open question what impact this week's election will have on their resonance with audiences.

In the case of the Secret Service thriller "White House Down," which stars Jamie Foxx as a fictional president and is scheduled to come out in June, "I personally don't think it's going to matter," says producer Brad Fischer. "Whether Obama or Romney wins, I think the same people are going to show up and see our movie and hopefully have a really great time, regardless of who's in the White House."

But director Lee Daniels is watching the election results with more anxiety. His film "The Butler," which dramatizes the story of longtime White House butler Eugene Allen, comes out next year. The film - based on an article by Washington Post staff writer Wil Haygood - ends with the main character, an African American who has served eight presidents, seeing Obama in the White House.

If Obama wins, Daniels says simply, "We'll feel the butler's journey was worth it." If Obama loses, Daniels predicts, "the movie will land completely differently. There will be a bittersweetness and a sadness about his journey. And I think the audience will feel it."

hornadaya@washpost.com

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication

Enjoying the spotlight - but enough already

BYLINE: Amy Gardner

SECTION: A section; Pg. A07

LENGTH: 1405 words

RICHMOND - The motorcades have made his daughter late for work and left him stuck on the highway for half an hour. The TV ads - well, don't get him started about the TV ads. Still, John Valentine brims with pride every time he sees his hometown skyline on the national news after another presidential candidate has come to town.

"It's always fun when you've been put on the map," said Valentine, who runs a small recording studio in Richmond. "It's like, wow - these guys are here three times a week! It's been tiring seeing all the commercials. But it's cool."

"These guys," of course, are President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, the candidates who have courted Virginia this year with an intensity never before seen in the Old Dominion.

No matter who wins here Tuesday, the heavy focus on Virginia has left a mark on the state and those who live in it. Voters say they feel a closer connection to the candidates and the campaign. The stature of Virginia politicians has gotten a boost. A state filled with history got a little more when Romney chose Norfolk as the site of his announcement that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) would be his running mate. And then there's the money - tens of millions poured into TV ads, radio spots, rallies, mailings, campaign offices and every other little thing that comes with a modern presidential campaign.

"It may be annoying at times, like when the traffic is stopped on I-81 because 15,000 people are leaving an event in Fishersville," said Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), who plans to run for governor next year and has campaigned with Romney and Ryan. "But before this, we watched it all on the news, and we read about it on the Internet and in newspapers, and it was happening somewhere else. Well, now it's happening right here, and that has a vibrancy to it. It's energizing."

Virginia had a touch of swing to it in 2008, when Obama spotted an opportunity and set up a campaign apparatus that helped turn the state blue for the first time in 40 years. But attention turned to the state late and the battle, such as it was, was one-sided.

Not so this year, when Virginia is one of the big three - right up there with Florida and Ohio as the most fought-over and valuable commodities on Election Day. The outcome is so uncertain that the two candidates, their spouses and their running mates have logged more than 90 appearances in Virginia in 2012 - nearly a dozen of those since Friday.

Virginians are not used to this sort of thing. Some of it they seem to like, some not so much. They are weary of the traffic jams, one thing the state does not need to import. And they are tired of the ads and the phone calls and the knocks on their doors.

Jordan and Morgan Mauck, 19-year-old twins and sophomores at Randolph-Macon College, are Republicans but have been getting phone calls and e-mails from the Obama campaign - a reflection, possibly, of their age and the fact that they are college students, a heavily targeted group for Obama.

They're not happy that the Democrats have their e-mail addresses, and they don't know how they got them, "but I'd sure like to know," Morgan Mauck said. "Never have I ever led anyone to believe that I support Obama."

Dixie Mauck, the twins' mother, said the family receives many phone calls from both sides at home, too. "It's pretty even," she said. "We're one of the stupid people who haven't canceled their home phone line yet."

Civic engagement

But Virginians like seeing the candidates on the local news or, better yet, meeting them in person. They like it when issues such as military spending or the federal workforce gain national attention. They see civic engagement on the rise.

"It does go on and on," said Richard Russey, 60, of Alexandria, who volunteers a few hours a week for the Obama campaign and was one of 24,000 at the president's rally in Prince William County late Saturday. "But what's exciting about being in a state that makes a difference is putting in as many hours as I can to make sure it goes in the direction that I want it to. That's actually possible."

Virginia is bested only by Florida and Ohio in money spent, visits paid, importance awarded: a populous, diverse, mercurial bellwether that's part of every analysis of how Romney or Obama will win on Tuesday.

The road from no-doubt-about-it Republican to tossup began a decade ago, when Virginia was growing at breakneck speed. Booming federal contractors attracted more independent-minded and moderate voters to the suburbs and exurbs of Northern Virginia. The Hispanic population grew. The long-dominant conservatism of rural Virginia receded in influence, and Democrats began winning statewide elections.

Virginia first appeared in presidential sightlines in 2004, when the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), made an early play in the Old Dominion by installing a small staff. But it became clear as the year went on that Virginia was still out of reach, and Kerry eventually diverted the staff elsewhere. Kerry lost the state by eight points.

Scott Surovell, a Democratic state lawmaker from Fairfax County, remembers volunteering for Kerry eight years ago, when no field staff, no money, not even yard signs were forthcoming from the national campaign. "I had to basically invent a presidential campaign in my neighborhood," he said.

Virginia's new status can be measured in many ways: how many times the Secret Service has asked Fairfax County police to provide security at campaign events (16); the number of pages the Roanoke Times added to its print edition this week to accommodate campaign-related letters (three); the number of Obama and Romney yard signs crammed into the medians along busy highways everywhere (thousands and thousands).

For Virginia politicians, nothing beats being from a swing state. Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has risen to prominence as a top Romney surrogate (and once-leading contender for the vice-presidential spot) in large part because of where he's from.

Big money

The money is another measure. According to data compiled by Kantar Media/CMAG, the two presidential campaigns and their allies have spent nearly $131 million on television advertising in Virginia. Tens of millions more have been spent on dozens of rallies that involve expensive staging equipment, security, even catering and hotel rooms for campaign staffs. And there are hundreds of campaign workers on the candidates' payrolls; Obama opened more than 60 offices across the commonwealth.

Although much of the money is going straight into the coffers of television stations, the other expenditures are probably having an effect, particularly at a time when Virginia's roughly $450 billion economy remains fragile, said Stephen Fuller, an economist with George Mason University.

"It's fairly narrow, and if this were a really booming economy, you wouldn't care," Fuller said. "But when you're still trying to gain traction and the recovery has lost steam around the nation, there is a benefit."

Still, even the most enthusiastic politicos - or economic boosters - appear to have had their fill of the ads. To say onslaught is an understatement; according to CMAG, the campaigns and their allies have aired 186,555 TV spots in Virginia television markets this election season.

Here's an even more dramatic illustration, compiled by Lauren Rubenstein of the Wesleyan Media Project: In the first three weeks of October 2004, the presidential campaigns and their allies aired seven ads in the D.C. television market. That's a mere 7,739 fewer ads than in the same period this year.

At the Roanoke Times, Publisher Debbie Meade has been delighted at the increase in volume of letters, leading the newspaper not only to expand the printed letters section but also to publish dozens more online.

"The election is at the top of people's minds," Meade said. "There's hardly any place you can go in town where people don't want to talk about it, speculate about it. It's wonderful for the media to have people so engaged, regardless of how they vote."

Don't wax too idealistic, however, about the increase in civic engagement. Letters on the Times Web site over the weekend included one calling for a shorter election season, another lamenting the nasty TV ads and another suggesting holding presidential contests only every eight years.

Virginians, in other words, are ready for it to be over.

gardnera@washpost.com

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication

Taking no chances in Pennsylvania

BYLINE: Ann Gerhart

SECTION: A section; Pg. A06

LENGTH: 1120 words

JENKINTOWN, Pa. - Joshua Shapiro woke up at 5:30 a.m. Friday, grabbed his iPhone and from his bed started answering e-mails about power outages in Sandy-slammed Montgomery County. He had 800,000 people and public facilities to worry about as the top elected executive of this county in Philadelphia's suburbs, and he also had polling places to get back in operation as the top Democratic leader here.

His Democrats were rattled. They have been smacked around statewide since conservatives set up a permanent tea party in the capital, Harrisburg, but they have persisted in believing that the state was proudly and permanently blue in presidential elections. And yet, Pennsylvania is suddenly being treated like a battleground.

Polls have tightened, and President Obama's lead is now just slightly larger than the statistical margin of error. Some $10 million in ads for Republican challenger Mitt Romney flooded in last week, large Romney-Ryan yard signs have sprouted on the spacious lawns of these affluent suburbs, and Romney swooped in Sunday for a rally that drew 30,000 to a farm in neighboring Bucks County.

If the GOP nominee hopes to be the first in nearly a quarter-century to pick off Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes, he'll have to eat into the fat margin that Montgomery County delivered to Democrats in 2008. The Obama campaign is concerned enough about the state that it has reserved ad time during the "Monday Night Football" game in which the beloved Philadelphia Eagles are playing, and former president Bill Clinton is packing in four rallies Monday.

The gritty hand-to-hand combat to turn out voters, always intense on the weekend before Election Day, has taken on a frenzied quality this year in a state with no early voting and a requirement that a voter must really be absent to get an absentee ballot.

The hurricane messed up the careful calibrations of the vaunted Obama get-out-the-vote operation. About 25 polling places, most in the eastern part of the state, remained without electricity late Sunday. Some 81,000 customers were in their seventh day with no power. Each day brings another legal skirmish over access to the polls in a state whose Republican-controlled legislature enacted one of the most restrictive voter-identification laws in the country.

"Having Romney come here, does it mean we are at risk?" asked Allyson Schwartz, a Democratic congresswoman seeking her fifth term. She was one of the candidates Shapiro had led into the drab basement of a condo building here, the first event in a long weekend of energizing an electorate distracted by toppled trees, lost power and a deferred Halloween.

"I'm nervous," said Shirley Curry, a longtime local Democratic leader. "Did you hear that new Romney radio ad? It's good."

People deconstructed, nervously, what former governor and Democratic National Committee head Edward G. Rendell said recently about the possibility of a "startling upset" in the state: Was he acknowledging Romney's appeal? Or was that a head fake, a way to get people fired up?

Turnout at this point is everything, Schwartz told the 60 or so people, mostly retirees, when she took the mike. "With some people being stressed out, we worry about that. You're worried about your freezer. You're worried about your children and your house."

Every four years for the past 20, Pennsylvania has looked tempting at the last minute to Republicans. It has a bedrock of rural conservatism that may be harder than ever in its center, even as Pittsburgh and the eastern counties have softened their blue hue to violet. The last Republican presidential candidate to win the Keystone State was George H.W. Bush in 1988. His son George W. Bush came to the same farm where Romney appeared, on the same Sunday before the 2004 election, to declare he would take the state - and lost by more than 140,000 votes.

White House senior adviser David Plouffe on television Sunday morning said it was a "desperate ploy" to have Romney travel to a state "he's not going to win."

But where Democrats see desperation, Republicans see opportunity.

Romney "relates better to those folks in the collar counties than any other recent GOP candidate," said Billy Pitman, the Romney campaign communications director for Pennsylvania. "The day after they saw him unfiltered in that first debate, we had a couple hundred people volunteer across the state."

The Republicans took note that about 85,000 Democrats who voted in the state's primary didn't cast a ballot for Obama, an undervote that they theorize shows a lack of confidence in the president's leadership that they can build upon, particularly in the coal counties bordering Ohio, Pitman says.

Shapiro, who never voices anything but confidence, doesn't buy it.

"I really don't think this race has changed that much," he said. Citing Romney's attempt to court moderates and independents, he said: "He has extreme positions on choice and on gay marriage, and there is vast regional distaste for that here, including with moderate Republican women. I don't see him catching fire in the suburbs, and if you don't catch fire here" in the four counties ringing Philadelphia, with their third of the total state vote, "you don't win."

Obama won Montgomery County by 20 percentage points - and nearly 87,000 votes - in 2008. He won Pennsylvania by 10 points, and the votes that piled up just in Montgomery, Delaware and Philadelphia counties compensated for his losses elsewhere in the state.

At 39, Shapiro is the first Democrat in 140 years to chair the three-person board of commissioners that runs the state's third most populous county.

That is why he brought candidates including Schwartz, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. and state candidates for attorney general and auditor general to the condo building's basement and later led them into the shops of nearby Keswick Village.

On Saturday, he made two appearances with second lady Jill Biden to pump up voters and continued to campaign with Casey, who has seen slippage in his reelection lead over Republican Tom Smith, a coal-mining executive who is a tea party favorite. On Sunday, there were three more events, including a rally at the University of Pennsylvania that drew a crowd of 25,000.

At the Keswick Tavern on Friday, where Halloween lights were still strung and the sandbags still piled up outside, and where grateful Hurricane Sandy refugees had availed themselves of the 24 beer labels on tap through a hard week, the retail politicking paused for a toast.

Tasting glasses of ale were poured. The politicians lifted theirs into the air.

"To Election Day!" said Leslie Richards, vice chairman of the board of commissioners. "And to having power at all the polling places."

gerharta@washpost.com

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Publication

The biggest Pinocchios of Election 2012;
It has been a long and brutish campaign. Here's a list of the lowlights.

BYLINE: Glenn Kessler

LENGTH: 1599 words

It's hard to believe this nasty and brutish presidential campaign has come to an end.

According to our Pinocchio Tracker, through most of the race President Obama and former governor Mitt Romney were neck and neck for the average number of Pinocchios, averaging about 2 Pinocchios each. But then, in the final months, Romney suddenly pulled ahead (so to speak) with a series of statements and commercials that stretched the limits. Obama's average also got worse - and was nothing to be proud of.

In the end, Romney finished with an average ranking of 2.4 Pinnochios, compared to 2.11 for Obama. Not counting debates (when we awarded no Pinocchios), we rated 92 statements by Obama and 77 by Romney, as well as more than 200 claims made by surrogates and interest groups, as well as Republican presidential contenders.

Among the primary aspirants, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) finished with the worst rating overall of any candidate - an average of 3.08 Pinocchios.

Here are some of the lowlights of the 2012 campaign.

Most Absurd 'Fact' - Republican version

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich's claim that Ronald Reagan never got a break from the "elite media" as an actor. As an example, Gingrich said only one of Reagan's movies - "King's Row" - got a good review from the New York Times. First of all, Reagan was a Democrat when he was in show business, so Gingrich's point was nonsensical. Second, four of Reagan's top 10 movies got raves from the New York Times - and King's Row was panned.

Most Absurd 'Fact' - Democratic version

Making a pitch for the president's jobs bill, Vice President Biden repeatedly claimed that rape in Flint, Mich., had tripled after the police force was cut, as part of a dubious argument that there was a connection between the crime rate and the number of police. He even asserted that rapes and other crime would increase if the GOP did not vote for the jobs bill. But you need to have your facts straight if you are going to make incendiary charges. We investigated and it turned out that incidents of rape in Flint, Mich., actually fell after the number of police was cut.

Worst SuperPac Ad - Republican version

A pro-Gingrich SuperPac released a 29-minute video titled "King of Bain," which portrayed Romney as a greedy job-killer ruining the lives of Americans. It foreshadowed the Obama attacks on Romney's record as chief of Bain Capital, but was so over the top that it made many of those later ads seem tame. One "case study" featured selectively edited footage of interviews of workers - who later said they were misled about the purpose of the film. They actually had no complaints about Romney or Bain at all.

Worst SuperPac Ad - Democratic version

Priorities USA Action, a pro-Obama group, aired a provocative ad that suggested that Romney was responsible for the cancer death of the wife of a former steelworker who had lost his health insurance. But it turned out she died of cancer five years after the closure of the plant - and had her own health insurance for a period after the steelworker, Joe Soptic, lost his job. As we put it, "On just every level, this ad stretches the bounds of common sense and decency."

Silliest Blooper - Republican version

Until we highlighted this claim, Mitt Romney had made this line a regular staple of his campaign stump speech: "We are the only people on the Earth that put our hand over our heart during the playing of the national anthem." We easily disproved this by randomly searching YouTube and finding numerous examples of sports figures and school children from around the world placing their hands on their hearts during the playing of their national anthems. Apparently, Romney was trying to ding Obama for once failing to do so during the 2008 campaign, but his belief in American exceptionalism was misplaced.

Silliest Blooper - Democratic version

President Obama's claim that President Rutherford B. Hayes was so averse to new ideas that he had asked of the telephone: "Who would ever use one?" It turns out that the 19th president was such an advocate of new technology that not only did Hayes think the telephone was "wonderful," but he installed the first telephone in Washington, in the White House, just four months after it was introduced. His telephone number was "1."

Most Baseless Accusation - Republican version

The repeated claim that Obama said that government, not people, built successful businesses. The truncated quote "you didn't build that," drawn from a late-night rally with ungrammatical phrasing by Obama, became the basis of repeated attack ads and even the first night of the GOP convention. But any fair reading of Obama's comments showed he was making a standard Democratic argument about community success - and that "that" referred to roads and bridges.

Most Baseless Accusation - Democratic version

Harry Reid's repeated claim, made with zero evidence, that Romney "hadn't paid any taxes for 10 years." Reid said he knew this was true because a person who had invested with Bain Capital had called his office and told him this "fact." We couldn't find a single expert who thought there was any credibility to Reid's reckless claim. Romney eventually released a summary prepared by his accountants showing he had paid federal and state taxes in each of the past 20 years.

Claim that would not die - Republican version

Nearly two years ago, we looked deeply at Mitt Romney's claim that Obama had gone on an "apology tour" as a new president - and we found no evidence to back up the assertion. Yet a version of that claim appeared in almost every speech by the GOP nominee, and Romney defended it in the final presidential debate. Then his campaign cut a new ad from his remarks, skillfully snipping out the fact that Romney incorrectly said the offending speeches were made in the Middle East.

Claim that would not die - Democratic version

The Obama campaign repeatedly asserted that Romney, while at Bain Capital, had outsourced jobs to foreign countries such as China, and had also sent jobs to India as governor of Massachusetts. The evidence was slim, at best, and often turned on such obscure issues as whether Romney still ran Bain Capital while taking a leave to manage the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Few nonfacts ever received as much ink and television time.

'Mediscare' - Republican version

Republicans initially claimed that Obama raided $500 billion from Medicare to fund the health-care law - a figure that later jumped to more than $700 billion for arcane budget reasons. But these were reductions in projected spending, mainly aimed at providers, and would not affect traditional Medicare benefits. Moreover, Republicans had adopted virtually the same "cuts" in their own budgets.

'Mediscare' - Democratic version

Democrats repeatedly charged that seniors would pay $6,400 extra a year in Medicare premiums under the overhaul plan promoted by Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). But this was a figure far in the future, based on an early and less generous version of the plan. A recent study of the "premium support" model suggested that any actual increase in premiums would be far less.

Worst Math Skills - Republican version

Romney's math showing how he would add 12 million jobs in his first term as president. He cited three studies, which collectively added up to 12 million jobs, but the studies had 10-year time frames, not four. Moreover, two of the studies did not even evaluate Romney's own plans.

Worst Math Skills - Democratic version

Obama's claim that "90 percent" of the current deficit is due to Bush policies, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama certainly inherited a mess, but any reasonable accounting showed that as his term wore on, Obama's policies increasingly were responsible for the deficit. By our estimate, by 2011, about 44 percent was due to Obama's policies. Bush's policies were responsible for about 10 percent, and the rest was due to the recession and forecasting errors.

'Plan' that Doesn't Exist - Democratic version

The Obama campaign claimed that Romney would raise taxes on the middle class by $2,500. This was based on a nonpartisan study trying to figure out how Romney could cut tax rates by 20 percent but still make his tax plan revenue neutral. The study concluded that eventually the elimination of tax deductions for the wealthy would also affect the middle class. So Romney's math may not have added up, but he never had a plan to raise taxes.

'Plan' that Doesn't Exist - Republican version

The Romney campaign countered that attack by charging that, instead, Obama would raise taxes by $4,000 on the middle class. This was also based on a study, which calculated the distribution of the debt burden on Americans. Obama's budget fell in a middle range, and Romney's budget would likely have a similar impact. But this was not evidence of a planned tax increase - far from it.

Most complex subject for spinning - bipartisan effort

The Obama administration's memo saying it would accept welfare waivers related to worker participation targets prompted bipartisan spinning. The Romney campaign aired an over-the-top ad that accused Obama of gutting the welfare reform law, even though no waivers have been issued. But the Democratic counterspin was also questionable, leaving largely unanswered what the administration hoped to accomplish with the new rules.

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LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2013

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

Souls to the Polls aims to turn out early voters in Ohio

BYLINE: Ed O'Keefe

LENGTH: 862 words

COLUMBUS -- As he concluded his sermon at Faith Ministries Church in Columbus Sunday, Pastor Dexter Wise asked how many people had voted already. Only about a third of his 500 members raised their hands.

"The way stuff is happening here, they'll have some law by tomorrow that says none of us can vote Tuesday," Wise joked as he urged his followers to join him in a vehicle caravan after services that would take them to a nearby shopping center.

After fighting traffic and struggling to find a parking spot, dozens of Wise's followers joined thousands of other Columbus-area voters in a line that stretched for almost two hours. Many of the voters in line -- an overwhelmingly Black and Democratic crowd -- learned for the option through the "Souls to the Polls" project, a critical element of President Obama's voter outreach strategy here that supporters hope will lift him to victory once again in Ohio.

Nearly 230 churches across the state joined the Obama campaign Sunday in using church vans and car pools to drive people to the polls. The churches also recruited local restaurants and gospel singers to provide nourishment and entertainment.

Sharon Saunders, 57, said Wise's offer of a ride to the polls made her decision to vote much easier.

"It was a blessing, I didn't have a ride otherwise," Saunders said. "It worked and it would have been hard for me, because I have to work."

Saunders has to work a late shift at a nearby Bath and Body Works assembly plant Tuesday and stood in linewithher sister, Wanda Panton, who had already voted.

Panton said she voted almost 10 days ago as forecasters began warning of possible local damage caused by Hurricane Sandy. "I heard there was a hurricane coming, so I got out and just did it. Besides, the machines might not work on Tuesday," Panton said.

Both women said they received several phone calls and mailings about early voting from the Obama campaign, but Panton also angrily recalled receiving several calls from Romney supporters "and 12 pieces of mail."

"I'm getting it from both sides, but I don't like that Romney is sending me mail," Panton said. "I'm not a Republican."

A few spots back in line stood Chaya Mazur, 29, who said she had planned to vote for Obama on Tuesday until an Obama campaign volunteer knocked on her door last week.

"I'm from Michigan originally and I never thought I could do this," she said. But with a busy day of work on Tuesday, Sunday made more sense.

Mazur said she was undecided until she learned of Romney's plans to cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood: "As soon as I heard about that, I said forget it, I'm going with Obama."

Outside the department store, the line snaked for about 100 yards in the direction of a Value City Furniture. A store employee, who declined to give his name, said Sunday's crowd was the biggest over the course of the almost 35 days of early voting at the site.

Amid the crowd, dozens of Obama supporters were handing out flyers promoting Monday's finalcampaignstop by the president, where he will be joined by Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z. Among those handing out the flyers was Matthew Lesko, the Washington-based author and activist who has used his books and loud TV commercials to raise awareness about tax breaks available to millions of ordinary Americans.

Though his views and life's work skew more Libertarian, Lesko said Obama was the better choice for Americans.

"We have too many rich people in this country, we don't need one running the country," he said.

As if the sight of Lesko in his famous corduroyquestion-mark outfit wasn't enough, an Abraham Lincoln impersonator was prowling the crowd looking for any irregularities.

"I'm 203 years old and hard of hearing," the impersonator, Robert Brugler, joked to one woman. Turning serious, Brugler said he's a strong proponent of the early voting process. "Just voting on one day is silly," he said. "There can be too many problems on that one day."

Marveling at the large crowd, Dana Walch, deputy director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, confirmed that the popularity of early voting far exceeds levels reached in 2008. Since early voting began on Oct. 2, at least 60,000 county residents had cast early ballots by Saturday. Every day more people have cast ballots early in person than the total number of early ballots cast four years ago, he said.

"You know how we've heard the candidates talk a lot this year about the New Normal?' Well, this is an Ohio elections official's version of the New Normal," Walch said.

Closer to the street, Obama supporters dressed as Sesame Street characters Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie stood waving signs. Romney's presence was scarce: A reporter's attempt to find a Romney voter over the course of 30 minutes came up empty. A single delivery truck plastered in Romney signs drove around the parking lot and only two Romney campaign volunteers were spotted handing out sample Republican ballots.

And near the street, Wise reconvened his followers next to a food truck and offered a prayer: "We thank you Lord, for the joy of being involved in this election," he said, adding that he hoped the result "might not be wrought with deceit and fraud."

LOAD-DATE: September 19, 2013

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Web Blog

With the end near, still some unknowns

BYLINE: Chris Cillizza

SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02

LENGTH: 928 words

In 48 hours we will (probably) know the identity of the man who will be president of the United States for the next four years.

Even though the end of this long, strange trip is nearly here, questions remain about the size and shape of the electorate, the true swing-state battlefield on which President Obama and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will fight over these next two days, and the factors that will ultimately push the sliver of undecided voters to make up their minds.

We lay out five of the most pressing questions.

1. Enthusiasm or organization? Most polls suggest that Republican voters are more amped to vote in this election than are Democrats. According to Washington Post-ABC News tracking-poll data, 80 percent of Republican adults are registered to vote and are absolutely certain to vote or have already voted, compared with 70 percent of Democratic adults. But even the most loyal Romney allies acknowledge privately that the ground operation Obama has built over the past six years - and honed over the past four - is superior to what the Republican presidential nominee has been able to put together since emerging as his party's pick in April. What Tuesday will prove is what matters more: an enthusiasm advantage or an organizational edge. Conventional wisdom dictates that either could boost a candidate's showing by a point or two. But if enthusiasm is working for Romney and organization is working for Obama, do they offset each other and turn this question into a push? And if organization and enthusiasm cancel each other out, then who wins?

2.Is the playing field expanding? In the last 10 days of the campaign, Romney and his allies have made investments of time and money in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Minnesota amid polling that suggests all three are single-digit contests. (Pennsylvania appears to be the closest, while Michigan still looks like a long-ish shot.) Romney staged a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday - his first of the general-election campaign - and his campaign is spending nearly $2 million on TV ads in the Keystone State in the final week. But Pennsylvania has proved to be a Republican trap in recent presidential elections - GOP candidates have been able to earn 48 percent but never 50 percent plus one. (The last Republican to win Pennsylvania was George H.W. Bush in 1988; in the five elections since then, Republican nominees have averaged 43 percent of the vote.) Without Pennsylvania, Romney faces a narrow path to 270 electoral votes - he all but has to win Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio. A win in Pennsylvania broadens that path considerably.

3. Where do independents end up? The story of the past several elections has been the wide swings among independent voters. In 2004, George W. Bush (R) lost independents by one point to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). Four years later, Obama carried unaffiliated voters by eight points over Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). (The independent swings have been even more pronounced in midterm elections; in 2006, independents voted for Democratic candidates by 18 points but four years later went for Republican candidates by 19 points.) In Post-ABC tracking polls over the past 10 days, Obama has regularly trailed Romney among independents by double digits. But in Saturday's tracking, the incumbent had pulled into a tie with these voters. If independents do move to Obama in the race's final hours, expect much focus to fall on Hurricane Sandy and Obama's handling of the disaster. Independents love the idea of politicians working together to solve problems, and Obama's trip to New Jersey to tour the devastation with Republican Gov. Chris Christie could have moved some unaffiliated voters to his side.

4.Will young people support Obama again?And in what numbers? One of the biggest myths of the 2008 election was that Obama drastically increased the number of 18-to-29-year-olds who voted. In 2004, 18-to-29-year-olds constituted 17 percent of the electorate. They made up 18 percent of it in 2008. The difference? Kerry won that youthful age group by nine points nationally; Obama won it by 34 points. Given that, the key for Obama on Tuesday is not to expand the share of the electorate that 18-to-29-year-olds make up but rather to ensure that it doesn't dip significantly, with the young people who vote doing so in something close to the percentages they did four years ago. Polling suggests that enthusiasm (as measured by likelihood to vote) among 18-to-29-year-olds has drifted off from four years ago, but the Obama campaign has placed a giant bet on being able to motivate and turn out these younger voters.

5.How big is the gender gap? Democrats have spent lots of time in this election driving a narrative that Republicans are conducting a "war on women," pointing to some of the policies espoused by GOP candidates on contraception and abortion - not to mention decidedly impolitic comments made by Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana on rape. But national polling suggests that Romney is trailing Obama by mid- to high single digits among women - a margin that would rank among the smallest gender gaps in modern presidential history if it holds. McCain lost women by 13 points in 2008, George W. Bush lost them by 11 points in 2000, and Bob Dole lost the female vote by a whopping 16 points in 1996. Democrats insist - and some polling data confirm - that Romney is having more trouble among female voters in targeted swing states where the Obama ad onslaught on Romney's record has been focused.

chris.cillizza@wpost.com

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DISTRIBUTION: Every Zone

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

SECTION: A-SECTION; Pg. A02

LENGTH: 394 words

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"If you hadn't had the storm, there would have been more of a chance for the Romney campaign to talk about the deficit, the debt, the economy. There was a stutter in the campaign. When you have attention drawn away to somewhere else, to something else, it is not to his advantage."

- Karl Rove, in an interview Friday with The Washington Post's Michael Leahy

BY THE NUMBERS

1 million The campaigns of President Obama and Mitt Romney and their allies have aired more than 1 million TV ads this cycle, according to a Wesleyan Media Project analysis, a figure that easily outpaces all previous elections. As many residents of swing states are realizing in the final days of the race, it's hard to turn on a television without immediately being bombarded by campaign commercials.

1.6 millionThe number of Ohioans who had voted by mail or in person as of Friday, according to the secretary of state's office there. The tally puts the Buckeye State on a trajectory to surpass 2008 totals. Democrats waged a high-profile legal battle to keep polls open to all voters this weekend and believe their victory in the fight will pay dividends for Obama.

0The number of times a Republican presidential nominee has won the White House without carrying Ohio. Obama's slight lead in recent polling in the state underscores the difficult map Romney is facing. If he doesn't carry the Buckeye State, Romney will have to defy history to win the White House.

BEST THING THATHAPPENED TO REPUBLICANS

The map expanded. Polls in some blue-leaning states got tighter, and GOP groups began launching ads in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Michigan and New Mexico. For Mitt Romney, whose electoral-college math is difficult, the prospect of expanding the map is a welcome one. The question is whether Romney and his allies are doing it because he desperately needs to or because the opportunity is there.

BEST THING THATHAPPENED TO DEMOCRATS

President Obama earned praise for his response to Hurricane Sandy. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), a top surrogate for Romney's campaign, even praised Obama, and by the weekend, big-name Republicans such as Karl Rove and Haley Barbour acknowledged that Obama's response to the storm had effectively cost Romney votes. This has been a great opportunity for Obama to be presidential, and he has passed the test so far.

- Aaron Blake and Sean Sullivan

LOAD-DATE: November 5, 2012

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

DISTRIBUTION: Every Zone

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Political films' timing tightrope

BYLINE: Ann Hornaday

SECTION: STYLE; Pg. C01

LENGTH: 1672 words

The release of a politically themed movie at the height of a contentious election is nearly always fraught with peril, even when the subject is perhaps the most transcendent figure in American political history. But Steven Spielberg, whose movie "Lincoln" opens in Washington on Friday, believes the timing couldn't be better.

"This is a good time to reintroduce Lincoln to the country," the director argued at his New York office recently, "in a period of time when the ground will still be smoldering after the first Tuesday in November."

There's little question that "Lincoln" - which revisits the highly charged period when Lincoln faced down a fractious Congress to bully through the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, permanently abolishing slavery - will draw large audiences curious to see how actor Daniel Day-Lewis inhabits the title role and eager to commune, at least cinematically, with one of the country's most cherished leaders.

Still, it's just as likely that "Lincoln" will resonate very differently with some viewers Nov. 9 depending on what happens Nov. 6. (The film hits theaters throughout the country Nov. 16.) If President Obama is reelected, his most ardent supporters may well see an allegory for their own candidate's last four years of navigating partisan rancor to effect sweeping change. If he loses, Lincoln will embody the very character and political genius that Obama's detractors insist he lacked throughout an administration marked by squandered promise and ideological gridlock.

With both parties claiming the 16th president as their own, doesn't that mean that half the electorate might avoid "Lincoln" as a painful reminder of what might have been?

Spielberg doesn't think so. "I think the timing is the right way to go," he said. "Either way, the film, I think, will hopefully have some kind of soothing or even healing effect."

"Lincoln" screenwriter Tony Kushner agreed, noting that, "whatever happens, one of the lessons you take from the life of Lincoln is that you have to have faith in the democratic process," he said. "And you have to keep faith with it. Had the South not seceded at that moment, had they stayed in and fought [politically] . . . 600,000 people might not have gone to their deaths on a battlefield. An easy recourse to despair and contempt for the system was as active and virulent in the days of the Civil War as it is now . . . but if you believe in equality and justice and really, in a certain sense, in government, you have to keep working towards building a better society that our still-functioning democracy allows."

The dynamics of when to release a politically themed film can be dicey, with millions of dollars in production and marketing budgets at stake. Oliver Stone brought out "W.," his satirical portrait of George W. Bush, in the waning months of Bush's second administration, and viewers stayed away - not only was such an assessment of his presidency premature, most observers agreed, but it wasn't nearly as compelling as the Obama-McCain campaign unfolding in real life. In 2000, "Thirteen Days," a movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis, arrived in theaters in the toxic aftermath of the Bush v. Gore re-count. The film was only a modest success, perhaps because audiences were exhausted after a season of political strife. But "Thirteen Days" wound up being politically pivotal, playing an important role in Bush's nascent first term when he invited Sen. Edward M. Kennedy to a private screening in the White House.